Sickert's family regularly holidayed in Dieppe, Sickert, himself, went to live there in 1898 and in the early years of the twentieth century he visited frequently to paint. Between 1898 and 1905, apart from extended stays in Venice. Sickert focused on the town and especially the Gothic Cathedral of St Jacques and the Place Nationale with its statue of Admiral Duquesne, which he painted several times between 1899 and 1902. Common to these paintings is the cursory treatment of the sculpture, as an oddly shaped mass, which quietly subverts its pretentions as a grand civic monument, as in a related painting in the Manchester City Art Gallery.