Sickert (1860-1942) was a gifted etcher and painter, often described as an English Impressionist. He was fond of 'real-life' subjects, which included the theatre, music hall and seedy domestic interiors. He seems to have had an almost morbid obsession with sexual violence, and produced a series of works based on a murder in 1907 in his own neighbourhood of Camden Town, north London. In his printmaking he was influenced initially by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), and later by Edgar Degas (1834-1917).