Price Realized £34,655
signed with monogram (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm.)
A well-dressed young lady is at the point of embarkation on her journey, holding her skirt off the ground in anticipation of climbing the step into the carriage. Her sense of propriety and dignity is about to be challenged by this inelegant and yet necessary gesture. She appears to be trying to persuade the conductor to allow her dog in the omnibus as he has indicated that the animal should be placed on the top. Whilst the girl and conductor exchange flirtatious glances, inappropriate given their different social status, they are being watched with great disapproval by the well-dressed gentlemen and the elderly lady seated further in the carriage.
Travel was a popular subject amongst Victorian genre painters as it provided opportunities to depict many social classes in the same composition, each with potentially diverse characters and stories. It also offered a chance to explore the implications of modernity on social conduct and propriety. Unlike railway cars, the omnibus lacked separate first- and second-class compartments and required passengers to ascend steep stairs and to sit packed together and thus it necessitated a revised etiquette. Travelling in this new mode of transport was also the subject of William Maw Egley's Omnibus Life in London (1859; London, Tate Gallery) and later George William Joy's Bayswater Omnibus (1895; London, Kensington Palace). It is possible that the present work is The Omnibus - one in; one out which he exhibited at the British Institution in 1861 (no. 185), the same year as his famous pendant Travelling Past 1760 'Your Money or your Life'; and Travelling Present 1860 'Tickets Please' in which the safety of the modern system is contrasted against the perils of the past.
2 comments:
This is very amusing...Ahh etiquette.
After reading so much about social classes in Victorian England, the dilemma of Omnibus didn't crossed my mind. It must have been unbearable for the upper middle class! I wander if at the end he let her bring the dog inside.
Dogs first for me. When I had a dog and could shop in nearby Bath, it was always the poshest shops that didn't make a fuss and offered him water and a biscuit.
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