The Red Shop (or The October Sun)

Having first visited Dieppe in 1879, Sickert spent a great deal of time there in the 1890s. At that time the French port was popular with British artists and holidaymakers. Sickert was fond of painting Dieppe's streets and shop fronts. A far cry from the grand subjects of high Victorian painting, this little scene focuses on a modest delicatessen. The painting is quite dark except for the red shop front brilliantly illuminated by the sun, its sign clearly proclaiming its name as 'Renault charcuterie Rouennaise'. Sickert first exhibited the painting at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris.