HelenCarte1885

Source: Scanned from Sickert, by Lillian Browse and Reginald Howard Wilenski, Faber and Faber, London, 1943.

• Date: 1885 - 1886
• Painter: en:Walter Richard Sickert, A.R.A. (1860-1942)
• Title: The Acting Manager or Rehearsal: The End of the Act

Description.

Oil painting of en:Helen Carte. According to the Christie's website, a 1992 exhibition catalogue described the painting as: "A portrait study of Miss Helen Couper-Black, general manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, collapsed on a sofa in exhaustion" after a rehearsal. The Christie's website says: "It is tempting to believe the rehearsal pinpointed in Sickert's title was of Whistler's Ten O'Clock Lecture, several presentations of which Miss Couper-Black staged in 1885.... This painting is an early example of Sickert's arbitrary use of titles. Its original title, reminiscent of a ballet scene by Degas, was especially misleading.... The painting is now known as The Acting Manager, the title of an earlier etched portrait, dated 1884 and shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1885, of Miss Couper-Black.... Only the sitter and the lamplit effects of the interior are common to both etching and painting."