The Sunday Walk, illustration to "Sally in Our Alley"
Abbey moved to England in 1878 to research illustrations to historical poems for Harper's and settled there permanently in 1883. This is one of a series that responds to an eighteenth-century ballad by the British poet Henry Carey. The apprentice who narrates the poem has put on his Sunday best to escort the young woman he adores along a cobblestone street. The related stanza reads:
Of all the Days that’s in the Week,
I dearly love but one Day,
And that’s the Day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I’m drest, all in my best,
To walk abroad with SALLY;
She is the Darling of my Heart,
And she lives in our Alley.
Reproduced as a wood engraving, the image appeared in Harper's "New Montly Magazine," vol. 74 (December 1886), p. 60 and in the book "Old Songs, with Drawings by Edwin A. Abbey & Alfred Parsons," Harper & Brothers, 1889, p. 80.
Of all the Days that’s in the Week,
I dearly love but one Day,
And that’s the Day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I’m drest, all in my best,
To walk abroad with SALLY;
She is the Darling of my Heart,
And she lives in our Alley.
Reproduced as a wood engraving, the image appeared in Harper's "New Montly Magazine," vol. 74 (December 1886), p. 60 and in the book "Old Songs, with Drawings by Edwin A. Abbey & Alfred Parsons," Harper & Brothers, 1889, p. 80.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Sunday Walk, illustration to "Sally in Our Alley"
- Artist: Edwin Austin Abbey (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1852–1911 London)
- Author: Related author Henry Carey (British, ca. 1687–1743 London)
- Date: ca. 1886
- Medium: Pen and ink on cardboard
- Dimensions: sheet: 17 3/8 x 12 3/8 in. (44.1 x 31.4 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
- Object Number: 29.100.923
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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