John Sloan made seven of the eight etchings included here for his series New York City Life. (Although not created as part of the series, the etching The Wake on the Ferry complements the group in that it depicts a similar subject-a group of reveling Irish mourners next to a horse-drawn hearse on the bow of the ferry-and is comparable in proportion and feeling to the series.) The original group comprised ten works completed in 1905-1906, to which Sloan added three additional prints in 1910-1911 (including Girl and Beggar and The Picture Buyer). The New York City Life etchings are now among Sloan's most iconic works, but he had little success in marketing them as a set at the time of their creation. In 1906 the set of ten prints was sent to an American Water Color Society exhibition and four of the prints were rejected for being vulgar and indecent. Sloan was furious and asked that the remaining six etchings be removed from view, though this request was refused. In these prints, Sloan shows simple moments from everyday life, ranging from the wife who turns out the light, to a young mother who reads the newspaper hoping for a better life, to the families who seek a cool breeze on their apartment rooftop. More challenging is the recent acquisition, Girl and Beggar, in which a streetwalker and a one-legged man look out of the picture frame toward an approaching figure who each hopes is their next meal ticket. Surely this etching would have been rejected from the 1906 exhibition had it been included. Taken together, however, these prints show New York City as comical, racy, mundane, frustrating, and hopeful.