This caricature shows Yvonne Arnaud (1892-1958) as Germaine Cave in Plan for a Hostess at the Oxford New Theatre on 17 February 1939. It was drawn by Gilbert Sommerlad (1904-1976), a rehearsal pianist and orchestral violinist at the Brighton Theatre Royal from 1932 until 1936, and at the Oxford New Theatre from 1936 for over forty years. Sommerlad sketched the stars on stage when he wasn't needed in the orchestra pit, compiling the sketches in a series of albums.

Yvonne Arnaud was born in France and trained as a concert pianist in Bordeaux and Paris. She toured as a concert pianist in Europe and the United States before making her first stage appearance in London in musical theatre playing Princess Mathilde in The Quaker Girl, Adelphi Theatre, 1911. She made her first real stage success as Suzanne, the leading role in The Girl in the Taxi at the Lyric Theatre in 1921. She went on to become one of the most celebrated leading ladies on the London stage, leaving musical theatre for drama after an operation which damaged her vocal cords. In 1965 a theatre named in her honour was opened in Guildford, the city where she lived and died.