In 1914, Sickert set up new studios in Red Lion Square, Holborn, first at number 24 and then next door at number 26. They were on the north side of the square: ‘Facing south is what takes me’, he declared. He installed a printing press at 26 Red Lion Square, which became a productive site for painting and etching war-related compositions. In Red Cross, a uniformed nurse is bending forwards to tuck in the bedsheets while a torpid patient lies on their side beneath the covers. There is a pair of slippers on the floor in the foreground. The interior is the front room of 26 Red Lion Square, which appears in various paintings including two entitled Tipperary [Baron 2006, nos. 447, 447.1]: the walls were panelled and coffered above the dado rail, the sunken areas painted pale blue and the framing areas a contrasting hue of olive grey. In this etching of Red Cross, that setting registers clearly in rectilinear subdivisions of the back wall.