This newly discovered Sickert has not been seen in public for many decades.

Dr Wendy Baron comments, ‘This is Sickert at his most ambiguous. He has deliberately confused our interpretation of the scene by presenting it in disguise as a mirror image. Throughout his career, taking his cue originally from Manet’s Un Bar aux Foiles-Bergere, 1882, (London Courtauld Institute of Art), Sickert used mirror images to expand the spatial geometry of his compositions and enrich the surface of his paintings with a formal counterpoint of shapes and colours.’

Influences of his friend and mentor Degas, can also be seen. A pencil study in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 5447), drawn on card, is closely squared-up in red ink.

Sickert’s lifelong delight in creating visual puzzles by observing and recording shapes in startling juxtaposition, is fully indulged in this work. He was living in Dieppe between 1919 and 1922, and the subject matter is Vernet’s Cabaret restaurant on the Quai Henri IV. The works particular and essential importance lies in the intriguing insights it affords into the uncompromising objectivity of Sickert’s eye and into his mischievous intellengence.