Art Collections Online

W.R. Sickert was a friend of Mancini. In 1927 he explained the artist's working method: 'His paintings were done through a wire grille, whose squares correspond with a grille before the sitter. The marks of the grille remain. The sitter being, as it were, pinned down, retained of his mobility alone the facial expression. But, trembling and snorting within that restriction, there is an extraordinary vivacity, there is power and a dashing impasto'. Margaret Davies purchased this painting in 1913.