Edwin Austin Abbey

Catalogue entry

N03991 THE APPRENTICE: ILLUSTRATION TO ‘SALLY IN OUR ALLEY’ 1886
 
Inscr. ‘E. A. Abbey 1886’ b.r.
Pen and ink, 15 1/2×10 (39×25).
Presented by a group of admirers through John Singer Sargent 1924.
Coll: Mrs E. A. Abbey.
Exh: (?) R.A., winter 1912 (301 or 308), as ‘Illustration to “Sally in our Alley”’.
Lit: Lucas, 1921, 1, p.159.
Repr: Old Songs, with drawings by Edwin A. Abbey and Alfred Parsons, 1889, p.78.

The series of drawings illustrating Old Songs began in December 1886 with those devoted to H. Carey's song ‘Sally in our Alley’, and appeared in Harper's Magazine before publication by Macmillan; see No.3990 above. This drawing illustrates the verse:

When she is by, I leave my work, I lover her so sincerely; My master comes like any Turk, And bangs me most severely; But let him bang his bellyful, I'll bear it all for Sally: She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our Alley.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I

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