Lot Essay
The present work was published in Harper's Magazine as an illustration for Mary Heaton Vorse's "The Box-Stall," a story from 1919 about a man returning to his life in England after four years as a prisoner in a German civilian detention camp during World War I. Biggs depicts the scene when a war-hardened Ricky rediscovers hope and his will to live through his reunion with his childhood friend Dorothy, now grown into a beautiful woman.