A woman is leaning forward over a gas-fired hob. The title, ‘The Rasher’, suggests she is frying bacon. The initial preparatory drawing was studied from life in Sickert’s studio in Fitzroy Street, and the etching did not follow until years later by which time Sickert had vacated the address. The print dealer Colnaghi received an impression of the unlettered first state of The Rasher in 1922. Food, ingredients and cooking were matters of special interest to Sickert, and he was well accommodated at 8 Fitzroy Street: ‘There was a huge cooking stove in one corner, for Sickert fancied himself as cook, particularly in a white chef’s hat and apron’, Emmons wrote. Osbert Sitwell thought Sickert cooked ‘surprisingly well for an amateur’.