'Sackcloth and Ashes', Tip Girls Leaving Work, South Wales Coal District

© Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil larger image

about 1879 medium: oil on canvas technique: painting size: 89.5 x 68.5 cm artist: Thomas Henry Thomas Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil The title is taken from several Biblical books (eg Esther 4:1,3; Isaiah 58:5; Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13) and is synonymous with penitence and grief. Thomas uses it in a rather punning way (sackcloth = rough garb of the girls; ashes = the tip) but given the context and the fact that it was exhibited at Merthyr in 1880, there is evidently a deeper significance.  (ObjectID=888 ImageID=2997) Original File Name=III-179.jpg

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• Gathering coal on the tips - mining 

Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: Industrial Society (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), p.119.

Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: Industrial Society (CD-ROM) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000).

© Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil