Sally in Our Alley, from Illustration for "Sally in Our Alley" by H. Carey)

Edwin Austin Abbey

ca. 1886 · Pen and ink on cardboard · Drawings and Prints

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.

Artist

Edwin Austin Abbey

Date

ca. 1886

Medium

Pen and ink on cardboard

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929