Signed and dated l.l.: H.T./Jan 1885

Wash and ink over pen and ink, 21.5 by 19.5 cm

Provenance: Myles Tonks, the artist's nephew

This rare early work by the influential Slade professor Henry Tonks was executed whilst the artist was still at medical school in Brighton. He would go on to study art at Westminster School of Art under Frederick Brown from 1888. Its style and influences are a world away from the rigorous Edwardian style associated with Tonks and his pupils after 1900, owing more to the work of the great Victorian illustrators, particularly Richard Doyle who had died a couple of years earlier.