(click image to enlarge)
Mounted
Taken from the sketchbook, 'Major Thompson in Paris, Figaro', 1955
The Boarding House of Mrs Cripplestone
Mrs Cripplestone, widow of an Indian Army officer and of a first husband whose portraits she carries in two lockets, one round her neck and the other on a chain on her large bosom, resembles very much your school mistresses of the boarding house keeper you created for a book called ‘London So Help Me’. The drawing of the dining room with the old ladies and several retired officers (the boarding house is in South Kensington) would be exactly in the style of the one in this book on page 15 (“An atmosphere of peaceful gentility”).