[2] Vosper had found success as a watercolour painter before coming to Wales; he had exhibited work in galleries throughout England, at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy in London.

There was a contemporary cultural image in Wales of a strong maternal figure (Mam Cymru) which was considered iconic to Welsh family life.

Robert Williams of Caer Meddyg (a carpenter, farmer and deacon at Capel Salem), can be seen on the far left seated beneath the clock.

[3] The eighth figure (second right of Siân Owen, wearing a Welsh hat) is not actually a model, but the tailor's dummy which Vosper had borrowed and named "Leusa Jones".

The chapel elders were uncomfortable with a dummy being in a sacred place of worship, and insisted that it was removed each Saturday night before the "seiat" (weekly church meeting) the following morning.

Vosper, however, wanted the women to wear the traditional tall stove pipe hats that many believed were a permanent feature of rural Welsh life.

At that time many homes owned no form of visual art and the innovative 'free gift' offer ensured that prints of Salem became widely, and uniquely popular amongst working-class communities, especially in Wales.

By 1933 the painting was famous enough to be the subject of a notable article in the Welsh-language magazine Y Ford Gron ('The Round Table') and in 1937, Salem gained yet more popularity when Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards sold thousands of prints to supporters of Urdd Gobaith Cymru for 6d.

[4] The chapel clock suggests that Siân Owen is arriving belatedly at a few minutes before ten (during the traditional Welsh silence before the morning service), possibly to ensure that her presence is noted, and appears to be wearing comparatively ostentatious clothing.

The interpretation was often synonymous with a popular belief that Vosper had hidden an image of the devil in the folds of Siân Owen's shawl.

[3] The painting's varying interpretations (especially as an admonishing lesson on pride) are now considered a valuable example of how the Welsh viewed themselves, and their rural nonconformist past, in the twentieth century.

The painting is on display at the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight, though there have been several attempts to permanently house it within Wales, most notably by a campaign in 2005 headed by Plaid Cymru's culture spokesman Owen John Thomas.

[6] Hel Straeon a 1988 S4C arts programme revealed the existence of a slightly different version of Salem, owned by a descendant of Frank Treharne James.

[2] This painting was at one point on display at Cyfarthfa Castle in Merthyr Tydfil, along with many other Vosper works bequeathed to the town upon the death of his second son.