Composition study for ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ in The Quest of the Holy Grail mural series at Boston Public Library 

This is a compositional study by Edwin Austin Abbey for 'Seven Deadly Sins,' part of the ‘Quest of the Holy Grail’ mural series at the Boston Public Library. Abbey, an American artist, made this preparatory sketch in the late 19th or early 20th century, an era when mural painting experienced a revival as cities grew and new civic spaces were created. These murals are visual expressions of civic identity, shaping public perception and often promoting specific values. Here, we see initial ideas around the representation of sin, but the muted colors do not give us a moralistic or sentimentalizing image of the sins. The grid in the background is a tool that Abbey employed as a system of measurement to transfer the composition from the study to a larger surface. The artist's choices reflect a specific set of cultural values from this time. To understand these choices fully, we could look into the archives of the Boston Public Library and the artist's personal papers. This will help us contextualize this artwork and deepen our understanding of it as something intrinsically linked to specific social and institutional settings.