La Rue Notre Dame and the Quai Duquesne

The present work, a Dieppe street, previously belonged to the collection of the French portrait and landscape painter, Jacques-Émile Blanche, who held a studio in Dieppe. During the 1880s, the town was alive with artists and critics travelling from the French capital; Blanche introduced Sickert to the likes of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro. Through these connections, and those with Parisian Dealers, Blanche aided Sickert in his election to the Salon d’Automne. This Dieppe street scene is one of a large number of Sickert’s paintings that Blanche sought for his personal collection; acquiring far more works than any other collector in Sickert’s lifetime.