The warm gold/brown tonality of this painting combined with its interior/still-life subject matter suggests a date c1908-9, from that period just before Gilman’s style changed radically under the impact of Roger Fry’s celebrated ‘Manet and the Post- Impressionists’ exhibition held in the autumn of 1910 when his colour, in particular, became much brighter and stronger. Meanwhile its technique and treatment appears to reflect the influence of Sickert whom Gilman had met early in 1907, becoming a founder-member of the Fitzroy Street Group, the Saturday afternoon exhibiting/discussion group that Sickert used to chair informally. Gilman painted a considerable number of domestic interiors at this time, many of which seem to share the same quiet, contemplative character as this work. Presumably showing Gilman’s own studio it may well have been painted while the family were living in Letchworth between the summer of 1908 and 1909, when Gilman’s first wife left him.