Little Dot Hetherington at the Old Bedford belongs to the early period of Walter Sickert's work, when he was influenced by his acquaintance with the French Impressionist Edgar Degas.

[3] Between 1887 and 1892, in a significant series of paintings depicting the music hall, Sickert explored themes central to his work: the actress on stage, the interaction between performer and audience, and unconventional angles under artificial lighting.

Anna Grunzner Robins noted that, when working on scenes set in the interior of a music hall, Sickert typically attended performances and took a seat in the fourth row from the back of the parterre.

Following the practices of Edgar Degas —whose influence Sickert acknowledged in the preface to the catalogue of the Impressionist exhibition he organized in London in 1889— he created small pencil sketches of performers, musicians, and audience.

The neighborhood housed affluent citizens and skilled workers employed in newly established factories, including those producing pianos, which lent the area a distinctly musical character.

[10] However, British cultural historian and University of Edinburgh professor Christopher Brouard has described Camden at the time as a poor, working-class neighborhood that was dysfunctional and unsafe.

The modern theater that Sickert painted, with its large gilt mirrors, gas lamps, and orange-and-blue color scheme, was demolished in 1898 to make way for the construction of the New Bedford Music Hall.

The ensuing scandal led to the legal age of sexual consent being raised from 13 to 15.The researcher emphasized that the male figures in Little Dot Hetherington at the Old Bedford appear far more sinister than the idealized "boy in love" referenced in the song sung by the girl, a detail reflected in the painting's later title.

[13] William Rough, PhD in art history, believed that the painting was an attempt by the artist to convey the power the young singer was gaining over the auditorium as she performed.

[14] An anonymous arts critic for Theatre Magazine wrote in a review in February 1889: "Among those whom I would call the most promising children must be Miss Dot Hetherington as Goudy, a charming little actress, singer and dancer".

[41] John Roy Major, a British politician and Prime Minister of United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997, wrote in his book on the history of music hall that Little Dot was probably only eight years old and just beginning her career when Sickert sketched her performance.

[13] In the 2000 edition of Sickert's catalogue of prints, Ruth Bromberg's Little Dot Hetherington at the Old Bedford includes the text of the very song the singer sang in the music hall.

According to Rice University professor Marcia Brennan, a reviewer of the publication, the inclusion of such details in the catalogue "greatly contributes to the reader's ability to contextualise the story" by recreating its historical and cultural setting.

Marshia Brennan, Ph.D., Professor of Art and Architectural History at Rice University, wrote that Sickert's paintings demonstrate a combination of the viewpoint of the flâneur, the detached observer of the public spaces of modern life, and that of the voyeur, who actively seeks opportunities to see the "private and intimate corners" of the individual.

Like Degas, Sickert deliberately leaves objects of secondary importance to him on the periphery of the composition in order to focus the viewer's attention on the protagonist, the singer Dot Hetherington.

According to Johnson, Sickert's approach to the play between fantasy and reality may recall Hogarth's depiction of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, Act III, Scene XI (oil on canvas, 56.0 x 72.5 cm, Tate Gallery, inv.

Hogarth, in Johnson's view, invites a coherent analysis of the details of his painting, whereas the 'limited focus and compositional density' of Sickert's canvas concentrates "the wealth of meaning in a single momentary impression".

[62] There was a suggestion that Sickert's idea for the mirrors came after seeing Edouard Manet's painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882, London, Courtauld Institute of Art, 96 x 130 cm, canvas, oil[63]).

[27] Robins wrote that "the eroticism underlying the social intermingling in the hall of men in cylinders and bowler hats gazing at Little Dot is mediated by the mirroring, which reinforces the element of fantasy".

According to the researcher, Little Dot in Sickert's painting is in a sense "a younger English version of the young dancers" in Degas's Rehearsal, but the enthusiastic Tiny pointing upwards on the galley is not like the French artist's "sophisticatedly dexterous" girls.

[39] In terms of subject matter and technique, William Rough saw The Little Dot Hetherington as Walter Sickert's response to similar works by James Whistler and Edgar Degas.

The sophistication of Sickert's compositional approach is complemented by freedom of interpretation (Baron notes, for example, the highlights that accentuate the drawing) and a vital colour palette.

The figure of the girl, according to the author, is intended to evoke sympathy in the viewer, who sees on the canvas a fragile child threatened by a world of faceless, probably drunken spectators.

She is physically separated from the audience by a brass railing at the front of the stage, but the barrier seems unusually high, emphasising her small stature and the tantalising inaccessibility of her body.

[73] Alan Robinson notes that the artist contrasts the singing girl in the almost aether white light (conjuring up images of a serene, happy Arcadia) with the ominous figure in black from the auditorium.

Min-tsuei Ni himself has attempted to examine the music hall imagery in Sickert's paintings as arising from the intersection of everyday life and theatrical performance.

[77] William Rough noted that mirrors allow the audience to see themselves on the same spatial planes as the performers, and to secretly observe those seated nearby without drawing attention to themselves.

[78] Barry J. Falk, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature at Florida State University, has argued that the images of music hall actresses remain the best known and most discussed in Sickert's work.

In his view, the artist's painting Little Dot Hetherington at the Old Bedford (dated 1888–1889) depicts a young singer pointing to the object of her affection, seated on the galley, as she sings the appropriate words of the song's refrain.

In Lillte Dot, "the patient viewer eventually realises that the singer's dramatic interaction with the men on the galley is a reflection in the mirror at the back of the theatre".