"Thursday"

Engraved by W H Boucher after a picture by Walter Dendy Sadler.
Size 18 x 28 inches (approx 46 x 71 cms.)

This delightful scene is a wonderful example of Walter Dendy Sadlers light-hearted depictions of religious life. The work depicts a group of Franciscan monks enjoying a leisurely afternoon of fishing at the river, in order to catch their food for the following day.

Traditionally, Friday has been considered a day of fasting in the Christian week, with all meat to be avoided in commemoration of Christs crucifixion. The Franciscans, in particular, were renowned for the strictness of the rules imposed in many of their monasteries; yet Sadler here allows himself a gentle dig at the order, suggesting that, while the monks are keeping to the letter of the law in their quest for fish, the jovial atmosphere of the endeavour is perhaps less sober than St. Francis himself might have intended.

This picture, painted in 1880, forms a pair with Friday, executed three years later, which shows the monks enjoying their catch the following day. Explaining the origins of Thursday, also known as Tomorrow Will Be Friday, Sadler wrote: The background was made up from studies I had painted in Germany, with the help of some foreground studies made in the previous summer at Hurley on the Thames. When Henry Tate, later to found the Tate Gallery, commenced his art collection, this was one of the first three works that he acquired. The approval of one of Britains greatest art collectors is an appropriately weighty endorsement of this charming work of art.