Yard, now Basil House, Berner Street

Rose Henriques' boldly painted watercolour offers a birds-eye view of a yard in Stepney, East London. Sheds are shown alongside derelict cottages and a red van occupies the centre of the composition.

This is the same street in which Henriques and her husband, Basil, opened the Bernhard Baron St. George's Jewish Settlement a decade earlier. During the 1940s, the yard became the site of Basil House in Berner Street, later renamed after the Henriques.

A self-taught London-born artist, Henriques specialised in views of Stepney and life in the city's East End. Her solo exhibition, 'Stepney in War and Peace', was displayed at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1947.

This painting is one of a number of works by the artist in the Museum's collection. Some drawings and sketches by her directly relate to her experiences as an air raid warden during World War II.