La Hollandaise

If there is one physical object which characterises Walter Sickert’s art, it is the iron bedstead which formed the centrepiece of numerous figure studies painted in London during the period 1905–9. This lowly piece of domestic furniture became the artist’s trademark, synonymous with both the subject matter and ethos of his paintings. His friend and model Cicely Hey, for example, described herself as the ‘last occupant’ of the iron bedstead,1 while the artist Diana White ironically asked Sickert if her niece, Regina Middleton, was required to buy one in order to become his pupil.2

The bed served a dual purpose as prop. Sickert organised his studio models in a series of poses based around the bed which allowed him to explore different figurative arrangements within an intimate environment. The physical appearance of the iron bedstead, however, was also important. It became symbolic of the social subjects Sickert sought to portray in his work, being functional and hard-wearing but also cheap and unrefined. It served as a metaphor for the urban working classes and the dingy London interiors – so beloved by the artist – which they inhabited. The iron bedstead appears principally in a number of pictures of the female nude from 1905–6, which later culminated in a series of works from 1908–9 known as the Camden Town Murder paintings.

The painting shows a female nude half-lying and half-seated upon a bed covered in white sheets with one leg crossed over the other and her left hand pushing down behind her, almost as though she is in the process of getting up. The bed has been positioned face-on with the legs cut off by the bottom of the picture so that the viewer seems to be standing at its foot looking down upon the woman. There is a strong suggested light source to her left which illuminates the nearest planes of her body and casts the right-hand side of her face and torso into deep shadow. Little detail is discernible about the rest of the room apart from a partial view of a large mirror on the wall behind, in which can be seen a reflection. The art historian Wendy Baron has identified a related drawing in charcoal, graphite and chalk in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.3 In this drawing a nude of the same appearance and build is fully reclined on the bed with her right arm raised behind her head and her right leg thrown across the left, in the opposite direction to the painting. It is perhaps more closely related to another oil of the same period, Nuit d’été c.1906 (fig.1),4 which seems to show the same room as La Hollandaise. The same iron bedstead also appears in other drawings and paintings including Le Lit de fer c.1905 (private collection)5 and The Iron Bedstead c.1906 (The Earl and Countess of Harewood).6