The Third-Class Carriage

Honoré Daumier

ca. 1862–64 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

As a graphic artist and painter, Daumier chronicled the impact of industrialization on modern urban life in mid-nineteenth-century Paris. Here, he amplifies the subject of a lithograph made some ten years earlier: the hardship and quiet fortitude of third-class railway travelers. Bathed in light, the nursing mother, elderly woman, and sleeping boy emanate a serenity not often associated with public transport. Unfinished and squared for transfer, this picture closely corresponds to a watercolor of 1864 (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore) and a finished oil painting (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa).

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

ca. 1862–64

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929