Cadell’s interest in portraiture was evident throughout his artistic career. Injected with a similar bold palette as his modern still lifes and landscapes, his acclaimed paintings of elegantly posed women demonstrate the artist’s passion for colour, fashion and decorative flair. By contrast, Cadell’s portraits of men (often servicemen and athletes) are typically more subdued and closely captured in moments of sensitive reflection. Here, a young Able Seaman Vickery of HMS Tiger has been very delicately portrayed. Vickery also sat for Cadell at his studio towards the end of the artist’s life, as seen in The Sailor and Able Seaman Vickery (circa 1932). The present work was gifted by the artist to Miss Katharine Tennant (The Baroness Elliot of Harwood of Rulewater) on the occasion of her wedding.