
Walter Richard Sickert 1860-1942
Aubrey Beardsley 1894
Oil on canvas
This painting is thought to have been inspired by Aubrey Beardsley walking through Hampstead Church graveyard after the unveiling of a memorial to the poet, Keats. At the time Beardsley was suffering from tuberculosis, the disease which had killed Keats.
Sickert places the elegantly dressed, yet emaciated figure, against a subdued background which adds to the poignancy of the image; Beardsley died four years later.