"The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley"

"The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley"

Edwin Austin Abbey

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley""The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley""The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley""The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley""The Sunday Walk," illustration to "Sally in Our Alley"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.