Thursday and Friday

Walter Dendy Sadler 1854-1923
Thursday 1880
Oil on canvas; support: 864 x 1410 mm
Tate Britain, London

Walter Dendy Sadler (1854 – 1923)
Friday 1883
Oil on canvas, 108 x 217cm
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Sadler was well known for his humorous scenes of religious life.

In Thursday, which is also known as 'Tomorrow will be Friday', he shows a group of Franciscans fishing. These friars, were forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, in commemoration of the day when Christ was crucified.

In Friday, he shows Dominican monks entertaining two Franciscans to a meal. Friday in religious life was traditionally a day of fasting, or at least a day in which no meat is eaten. Sadler's monks are observing the letter of the law, if not its spirit by sitting down to a feast of fish.