The Cigarette (Jeanne Daurmont)

Walter Richard Sickert

1906 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

This is one of a group of six pictures that Sickert painted of two Belgians, Jeanne and Hélène Daurmont, during the Easter holiday in 1906. Jeanne, a milliner, later recalled that she and her sister, a charwoman, had met the artist in London when he overheard them speaking to a policeman in French. The subdued palette, softly smudged outlines, and direct approach to the model anticipate the artist's later Camden Town style, for which he is best known. At Easter time 1906 Sickert sent his friend Mrs. George Swinton several postcards with sketches of paintings he was working on. One of them depicts this picture and is inscribed: Easter Monday No.1. Jeanne (private collection).

Artist

Walter Richard Sickert

Date

1906

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Bequest of Mary Cushing Fosburgh, 1978