£500

£750

Unframed
Pencil
8 1/2 x 11 in. (21.5 x 28 cm.)

Provenance: the artists family

This sheet includes a profile portrait of the artist's mother, (top right), and Winifred's sister Joyce (top centre), both of whom served as models in the final painting.  There is also a sketched self-portrait (full length figure to centre) which, with its emphasis on elongated hands and feet, has much in common with Knights' portrayal of herself in the iconic Deluge of 1920.

This study is for the earliest of Knights' decorative paintings: Design for Wall Decoration, the Slade Sketch Club Special Figure Subject for January 1918. Knights painted an oil of the Design for Wall Decoration (private collection), but the mural itself is unlikely to have been executed - other studies indicate that its intended size was to be 5 X 6 ft (the size of paintings entered for the Scholarship to Rome). The picture is inspired by the Italian Primitives, as the clarity of form, and the thoughtful arrangement of the figures in space indicate. The studies for the composition were probably executed while staying at Lineholt Farm in Worcestershire, between October 1917 and October 1918.