Titles

Only one title has been suggested:

• 'portrait of Mrs Walter Cave' (1911, W. R. Sickert). 1
• 'Portrait of Mrs Walter Cave' (1980, YMSM). 2

Description

The portrait of a woman, possibly a half-length of the sitter seated in profile. Her dress, if fashionable, would have had big, "leg o'mutton" sleeves.

Sickert painted 'another [portrait] of the same arrangement' as this portrait, and showed it at the exhibition of the New English Art Club in April 1895 (cat. no. 79). The Glasgow Herald described Sickert's portrait as ‘a slim, alert figure in a black and velvet dress with big sleeves, and a fair-haired curly head, with face in outline against a soft background of old rose colour’, while the Globe added that it was a ‘half-length' of the sitter 'seated in a spontaneous attitude.’ 3

Sitter

The sitter may have been Jessica Cave (d. 1934), née Cochrane, who, on 21 June 1892, married the architect Walter Frederick Cave (1863-1939), the son of Sir Charles Daniel Cave of Sidmouth in Devon. 4 Walter Cave was articled to Sir A. W. Blomfield, ARA, studied at the R.A., and designed a wide variety of buildings including the Aeolian Hall in New Bond Street. They had one son, Richard Cave. Works by Walter and Jessica Cave were exhibited at the 1899 Arts & Crafts Exhibition. 5 They certainly knew Sickert but there is no record of this portrait in the family.