The following was excerpted from the Catalog Raisonne.

The painting is an experimental sketch for the full-length portrait of W Graham Robertson (now in the Tate, London). It agrees closely with the finished work, but the dog which is featured in the finished portrait is absent here. The background comprises a section of panelling with pilaster, probably based on the panelling in the studio at 33 Tite Street, instead of the Japanese screen in the finished picture. The head is less directly frontal; and the walking cane is only indicated by a single line scratched through the paint.

Walford) Graham Robertson (1866-1948) was a painter, illustrator, theatre designer, poet and collector. He studied painting under the artist Albert Moore, but was closer in spirit to the Pre-Raphaelitism of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. His children's books with their delicate, whimsical illustrations wereparticularly successfi. He wrote a number of plays, but only two, Pinkie and the Fairies( 1908) and The Fountain of Youth, were produced in London. Handsome and charming, he cultivated the friendship of many celebrities in the world of literature, art and the theatre. His book of reminiscences, Time Was, includes witty stories and vignettes of them which constitute a cameo of the age. His own considerable art collection embraced a large holding of works by William Blake (see Kerrison Preston, The Blake Collection ofW Graham Robertson, London, 1952) and several Victorian masterpieces, including Choosing by G. F. Watts (National Portrait Gallery, London).