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Honoré Daumier French
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 802
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).
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Fig. 1. Honoré Daumier, "The Third-Class Carriage," ca. 1863–65, oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (65.4 x 90.2 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Purchased 1946, no. 4633. Photo © National Gallery of Canada
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Fig. 2. Honoré Daumier, "The Third-Class Carriage," 1864, watercolor, ink wash, and charcoal on slightly textured, moderately thick, cream laid paper, 8 x 11 5/8 in. (20.3 x 29.5 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 37.122
Artwork Details
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Title: The Third-Class Carriage
Artist: Honoré Daumier (French, Marseilles 1808–1879 Valmondois)
Date: 1864
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 25 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (65.4 x 90.2 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number: 29.100.129
Learn more about this artwork
The Artist Project: Swoon
Artist Swoon reflects on Honoré Daumier's The Third-Class Carriage in this episode of The Artist Project.
Connections: Privilege
Art preparator Theresa King-Dickinson ruminates on the universal privilege of art appreciation.
Timeline of Art History
Essay
Nineteenth-Century French Realism
Chronology
France, 1800-1900 A.D.
Museum Publications
Walker Evans
Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 7, Europe in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Spanish)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Russian)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Portuguese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Korean)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Japanese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Italian)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (German)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (French)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Chinese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Arabic)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look At Art
The Artist Project
Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection
One Met. Many Worlds.
Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, Nineteenth Century
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue
Daumier Drawings
Art = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History
A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
"The Wet Nurse in Daumier's*Third-Class Carriage*"
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The New Oedipus before the New Sphinx (Le nouvel Œdipe devant le nouveau Sphinx), from Actualités
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Album Chaos Caricature de tout le monde
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La Mort de Sapho, from Histoire Ancienne, published in Le Charivari, January 4, 1843
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