Oliver Messel,

‘A Dive in St. Petersburg’, for the 1949 film The Queen of Spades, charcoal and coloured chalk on paper, with white highlights in gouache, signed in colour lower right, short tear to upper margin, some tape residue to corners, frame inscribed verso, 30 x 55cm, c.1949.

***Based on the 1834 short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, the film was directed by Thorold Dickinson and starred Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell.