Signed in pencil l.r.: E.J.Burra

Pen and ink, 32 by 20 cm

Provenance: Sotheby's, London, Works from the Estate of Edward Burra, 3 July 2002, lot 210

Typically reflective of Burra's interest in outsiders and those on the margins of society, the present study may relate to Burra's watercolour The Nitpickers from 1932 (sold Christie's, London, 19 June 2018, lot 20). The scene is described in a letter from Burra's friend Barbara Key-Seymer recalling a trip to the red light district in Marseilles:

'Ed and I went up to the red light district in Marseilles where the elderly (to us) tarts sat on wooden chairs outside their bedrooms which opened onto the street concealed by bead curtains. We were going to photograph them, but one of them saw us and rushed after us calling out in French, ‘You’ll have to pay for that’, but Ed and I flew down a side street and escaped’ (B. Ker-Seymer to A. Stephenson, 30 May 1984, quoted in A. Stephenson, The work of Edward Burra, 1919 -1936: context and imagery, Edinburgh PhD thesis, 1988, p. 184).