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Artworks
Walter Sickert
A Little Cheque (The Small Plate), 1915Etching and engraving on laid paperPlate: 14.9 x 10 cm / 5 7/8 x 3 7/8 in
Sheet: 18.5 x 14.8 cm / 7 1/4 x 5 3/4 inSecond state (of two)Copyright The ArtistA woman is reclining on a chaise longue while a man hunches over his desk. He is writing out ‘a little cheque’ for his friend. The pair are evidently more...A woman is reclining on a chaise longue while a man hunches over his desk. He is writing out ‘a little cheque’ for his friend. The pair are evidently more involved than their aloof positions suggest. The setting is Sickert’s studio at 24 Red Lion Square and his models were the painters Dora Sly (née Erichsen) and Charles Ginner. An impression of the small plate is inscribed ‘Red Lion Sq./Mrs Sly & Ginner’. Wendy Baron established that Erichsen and Ginner were probably romantically involved before she married ‘the intriguing and exciting’ Alfred Victor Sly. She further surmised that A Little Cheque was ‘Sickert’s comment on the economics of their relationship’: ‘Dora rejected Ginner in favour of Sly, but accepted financial help from her former suitor.’ The large plate of A Little Cheque likely preceded the more detailed and resolved small plate, which was published by the Carfax Gallery in 1915.Provenance
Ruth and Joseph Bromberg
The Fine Art Society, London, 2004
The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, Los Angeles, May 2005
Exhibitions
London, The Leicester Galleries, An Exhibition of the Etched and Engraved Work of Walter Sickert, A.R.A. from 1884 to 1924, Jan. 1925, cat. no. 98
London, The Leicester Galleries, Etchings and Engravings by Walter Richard Sickert, Oct. 1941, cat. no. 9
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Centenary Exhibition of Etchings & Drawings by W. R. Sickert, 15 March – 14 April 1960, cat. no. 72
New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, Walter Sickert as Printmaker, 21 Feb. – 15 April 1979, cat. no. 82London, The Fine Art Society, The Ruth and Joseph Bromberg Collection of Sickert Prints and Drawings, 21 Sept. – 21 Oct. 2004, cat. no. 97*
London, Piano Nobile, Sickert: Love, Death & Ennui. The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, 26 Sept. – 19 Dec. 2025, no. 50*
Literature
J. Middleton Murry, 'The Etchings of Walter Sickert', Print Collector's Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 1 (Feb. 1923), p. 52
Aimée Troyen, Walter Sickert as Printmaker, exh. cat., Yale Center for British Art, 1979, cat. no. 82, pp. 60–61 (illus.)
Ruth Bromberg, Walter Sickert: Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press, 2000, cat. no. 169, pp. 209–210 (illus.)
Wendy Baron, 'The Many Faces of Dora Sly', The Burlington Magazine, vol. 145, no. 1204 (July 2003), p. 516The Ruth and Joseph Bromberg Collection of Sickert Prints and Drawings, exh. cat., The Fine Art Society, 2004, cat. no. 97, p. 87 (this impression col. illus.)*
Wendy Baron, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, Yale University Press, 2006, cat. no. 422.7, p. 412
Kate Aspinall, Luke Farey and Stuart Lucas, Sickert: Love, Death & Ennui. The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, exh. cat., Piano Nobile, 2025, no. 50, pp. 104–105 (col. illus.)*
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