The Third-Class Carriage

The Third-Class Carriage

Artist	Honoré Daumier
Year	1862-1864
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	65.4 cm × 90.2 cm (25.7 in × 35.5 in)
Location	Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Third-Class Carriage is a c. 1862-1864 oil on canvas painting by Honoré Daumier, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A similar painting by Daumier with the same title is in the National Gallery of Canada.

Daumier had drawn and painted images of rail travel since the 1840s. This version of The Third-Class Carriage appears to be closely related to an 1864 watercolor now in the Walters Art Museum. The painting is unfinished, and is squared for transfer.

The Third-Class Carriage evidences Daumier's interest, as also seen in his graphic works, in the lives of working-class Parisians. Third-class railway carriages were cramped, dirty, open compartments with hard benches, filled with those who could not afford second or first-class tickets. In the bench facing the viewer are seated, from left, a woman holding her baby, an older woman with her hands clasped atop a basket, and a young boy asleep. Seated behind them are anonymous rows of women and men.

The painting entered the Metropolitan Museum in 1929 as part of the H. O. Havemeyer bequest.

Related works

• 
  The Third-Class Carriage, 1863-1865. National Gallery of Canada
• 
  The Omnibus, 1864. Crayon and watercolor. Walters Art Museum
• 
  Voyageurs Appréciant de Moins En Moins..., c.1856. Lithograph
• 
  Impressions et Compressions de voyage, 1853. Lithograph

References

• Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's art through the ages: the western perspective, Cengage Learning, 2010.
• The Third-Class Carriage, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Third-Class Carriage, National Gallery of Canada.