Pen and black ink over pencil, 16 by 14 cm (6 ¼ by 5 ½ ins)

This drawing is a study for a painting with the same title now in the collection of Stanford University, USA (see fig.below (Iris & B.Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts)) (see, Wendy Baron, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, Yale, 2006, p.282, no.193). The sitter is one of Sickert’s most regular Venetian sitters, Carolina Dell’Acqua (usually rendered by Sickert as Caroline Dell’Aqua) and reputedly nicknamed this way due to her aversion to water. Sickert’s distinctive technique of intense cross-hatching in pen and ink over a pencil background helps convey something of the artist’s shadowy impressionist style, so central to his paintings from the date.