UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Salvation Army, Sandwich

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.490)
Number: 319
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 83 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 7
Catalogues: K.305; M.300; W.236
Impressions taken from this plate  (7)

KEYWORD

band, dutch gables, façade, flags, music, people, square, town.

TITLE

Minor variations on the title are as follows:


'Salvation Army. Sandwich' (1887, Whistler). 2
'The Salvation Army' (1887/1888, Whistler). 3
'Salvation Army' (1889, Whistler). 4
'Sandwich: Salvation Army' (1899, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 5
''Salvation Army, Sandwich' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 6


The title 'Salvation Army, Sandwich' is based on Whistler's original title.

2: Written on Graphic with a link to impression #K3050107.

3: List, [1887/1888], GUW #13233.

4: List, 18 July 1889, GUW #13235.

5: Wedmore 1899 (cat. no. 236).

6: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 305).

DESCRIPTION

A view across a broad square to a row of houses, some of which have large shop windows. At far right is a street leading off the square into the distance. There is a crowd of people in the square, mainly surrounding a group with two large flags, and more people in the street to right. The houses, brick-built, are two and three storeys high, with roofs and chimneys of varying heights, the three houses on the right having tall Dutch-style gables.

SITE

Whistler wrote: 'Salvation Army. Sandwich' on one impression (Graphic with a link to impression #K3050107). The etching shows the Cattle Market, in the centre of the town of Sandwich, Kent, UK. The houses with their Flemish gables were demolished in the 1890s. Whistler avoided the more famous Guildhall (which still exists) to draw these more varied façades.
Arthur Evershed (1836-1919) made several etchings of Sandwich including one from the same spot as Whistler in 1882. He exhibited The Market Place, Sandwich at the Royal Society of Painter- Etchers and Engravers in 1892 (cat. no. 317). 7 Percy Thomas (1846-1922) made a Cinque Port series of etchings, and in 1895 exhibited two of Whistler's subjects, Butchers, Sandwich and Market Square, Sandwich at the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1895 (cat. nos. 146-7).

DISCUSSION

The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church, founded in 1865 in the UK by William and Catherine Booth as the East London Christian Mission. It had a quasi-military structure, the members wearing uniforms and having military ranks, holding open-air marches and meetings enlivened by singing and brass-bands, and providing food and shelter for the needy. Originally it targetted alcoholics, prostitutes, drug addicts and the poor. Thus it aroused opposition from publicans, and people who didn't like brass bands, and had mixed responses from the churches. One minister 'while disapproving of the blood and fire parade of the salvation army, welcomed most heartily the stimulus and inspiration they had given to the Church to be aggressive and indomitable.' 8

8: 'Congregational Union of England and Wales', The Times, London, 12 October 1887, p. 6; see also The Times, 30 March 1888, p. 8.