Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
The Derby Day
William Powell Frith · Realism & Academic
- Artist
- William Powell Frith (1819–1909)
- Date
- 1856–1858
- Dimensions
- 101.6 x 223.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
The Derby Day shows the huge crowd gathered on Epsom Downs for the most famous horse race in England. Every level of Victorian society is there: acrobats, gypsies, pickpockets, gamblers, elegant ladies in carriages, policemen, children and drunks, all crowded together in the foreground.
A closer look
The racehorses themselves are barely visible in the distance; the real subject is the crowd and its endless small stories. A young acrobat stares hungrily at a picnic being unpacked, a man is being cheated at a game of thimblerig, a fashionable lady in a carriage looks bored. Frith spent fifteen months on the painting, using photographs and many models. When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1858, it was so popular that a rail had to be put up to protect it from the crowds.