The Third-Class Carriage (1863-1865)

Signature

Lithograph - Pencil Signed & Numbered 302/500

Sales Price $2,275 or best offer

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. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Comparative Daumier Works:

Lot 63 RUE TRANSNONAIN 1834 Estimate $35,000 - $45,000 Dimensions: 11 3/8 x 17 1/2 in Lithograph on wove paper Evening Editions at Phillips de Pury & Company, Upper... Apr. 21, 2011	Lot 203 CELUI-LÀ, ON PEUT LE METTRE EN LIBERTÉ! 1834 Realized price 660 USD Size: 9 3/4x10 1/8" Lithograph 20th century Prints & Drawings at Swann Auction Galleries Mar. 03, 2011	Lot 268 ENFONCÉ LAFAYETTE! ... ATTRAPPE, MON VIEUX! 1834 Realized price 8,000 CHF Size: 36,1x49,8 cm Medium: Lithograph Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries... at Galerie Kornfeld Jun. 17, 2010	Lot 274 MON CHER MONSIEUR, IL M'EST ABSOLUMENT IMPOSSIBLE DE PLAIDER VOTRE AFFAIRE... 1846 Realized price 3,400 CHF Size: 22,7x19,7 cm Medium: Lithograph Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries... at Galerie Kornfeld Jun. 17, 2010	Lot number 25 L’Ane et les deux voleurs 1862 Hammer price USD 850 Medium Lithograph (3rd state/4) Location Boston MA (UNITED STATES) Size 26.3x20.3 cm Auction house Skinner Distinguishing marks Initial.
				Other works by Daumier: Les Beaux Jours de la Vie: Un Premier Voyage en Chemin de Fer
Lot number 35 Vue prise dans la nouvelle rue de Rivoli/Un effet des démolitins dans Paris 1852 Hammer price USD 1,191 Medium Lithograph/vélin (2) Location Paris (FRANCE) Auction house Piasa S.A Sales date 12/9/2010	Enfoncé les bons Gendarmes 1830 Hammer price USD 1,533 Sammlung Lotar Neumann Medium Lithograph Size 35x27 cm Auction house Kornfeld Galerie & Cie Sales date 6/6/2008	La salle des pas-perdus au Palais de Justice Dimensions: 8½ x 11" Oil on panel Signed Realized Price: 157,250 GBP Christie's King Street Jun 15, 2011	Lot Number: 3458 18 sheets with political portraits, all published in "La Caricature" 1833 Size: each ca. 35 x 26 cm Lithographs Realized Price: 700 CHF Estimate: 1,500 - 1,800 CHF Koller Zurich Old Master Prints Mar 30, 2012

Ongoing Daumier Exhibitions:

Honoré Daumier, (born Feb. 20/26, 1808, Marseille, Fr. — died Feb. 11, 1879, Valmondois) a French painter, sculptor, and caricaturist, was born into a family of artists. He started work at age 13 for a bailiff in a law court, then as a clerk in a bookstore, where he started to observed and analyzed the appearance and behavior of people of different social classes. In 1829, after studying lithography, he began contributing cartoons and drawings satirizing 19th-century French politics and society to periodicals, and came to enjoy a wide reputation. He produced more than 4,000 lithographs and 4,000 illustrative drawings. His paintings were rarely exhibited, and he remained unknown as a painter. In sculpture he specialized in caricature heads and figures; some 15 small clay busts occupy an important place in the history of sculpture.

In Third-Class Carriage he shows, with great compassion, a group of people on a train journey. Here he is concerned with one family group, the young mother holding her small child, the grandmother lost in her own thoughts, and the young boy fast asleep. The print is done with simple power and economy of line. The hands, for example, are reduced to mere outlines and beautifully drawn. The bodies are as solid as clay, their bulk indicated by stressing the essential and avoiding the nonessential. These are not portraits of particular people but of mankind.