This masterly drawing is of the sultry 'Dorette', Brockhurst’s nickname for his muse and lover Kathleen Woodward, who modelled at the Royal Academy Schools in London where Brockhurst was a visiting professor. Brockhurst was still married to his first wife, Anaïs Mélisande Folin, when he started an affair with the younger Woodward, and since he exhibited sensual pictures of Kathleen at every Royal Academy Summer Exhibition from 1933-39 there was quite a scandal. These pictures also demonstrated his great skills as a draughtsman and a portraitist, and helped earn him high profile commissions, such as the film star Merle Oberon in 1937. After Brockhurst and Woodward emigrated to the US in 1939, he continued to paint famous and beautiful women and could count Marlene Dietrich and Wallis Simpson among his sitters – the portrait of the latter is now in the National Portrait Gallery. He and Woodward eventually married in 1947.