Walter Richard Sickert

Two Women on a Sofa - Le Tose

c.1903–4

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Not on display
Artist
Walter Richard Sickert 1860–1942
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 457 x 533 mm
frame: 652 x 729 x 60 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Bequeathed by Sir Hugh Walpole 1941
Reference
N05296

Display caption

In Venice in 1902-3, Sickert experimented with setting figures in natural poses in everyday surroundings. This picture’s subtitle, ‘Le Tose’, is taken from Venetian dialect and means ‘the girls’. Its constrained, planar composition forces attention onto the figures, although their faces are blurred and impossible to read, creating a sense of ambiguity. We can only look to the pose and set of their bodies to read meaning. Each figure looks back at the painter, one is bored, the other more relaxed. The pair are evidently on close terms as they sit near to one another. Sickert’s models were the prostitutes Carolina dell’Acqua and ‘La Giuseppina’.

Gallery label, May 2007

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Tipperary’ 1914

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘The Little Tea Party: Nina Hamnett and Roald Kristian’ 1915–16

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘L’Américaine’ 1908

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1908
Walter Richard Sickert, ‘L’Armoire à Glace’ 1924

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1924
Walter Richard Sickert, ‘The Seducer’ c.1929–30

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Mrs Barrett’ c.1905

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Les Arcades de la Poissonnerie, Dieppe’ c.1900

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c.1900
Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Ennui’ 1914–5, published 1929

Walter Richard Sickert Ennui

1914–5, published 1929
View by appointment
Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Study for ‘Ennui’’ 1913–14

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘Jacques-Emile Blanche’ c.1910

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Walter Richard Sickert, ‘The Front at Hove (Turpe Senex Miles Turpe Senilis Amor)’ 1930

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1930