William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was one of the greatest painters of nineteenth-century life and his teeming panoramic views, including Ramsgate Sands (RCIN 405068) and Derby Day (Tate) broke new ground with their depictions of a diverse contemporary crowd.

This painting is a small-scale version of Frith's 1862 The Railway Station (Royal Holloway College). The painting was set in London's Paddington Station, completed a decade early; built by the great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Paddington was a cutting-edge building, contructed from cast iron and glass and lit by gas-light. It was the London terminus of the Great Western Railway, with trains running to Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Plymouth and the West Country. The Railway Station Frith's original painting took a year to complete. The scene takes place on the platform, a large and disparate group of people are assembled preparing to board the train. Frith and his family appear as the group in the left foreground, with his wife kissing the couple's younger son goodbye. He clutches a cricket bat and is presumably off to school for the summer term. Frith and his elder son stand behind. Beside them is a bearded man in a fur coat, modeled on a Venetian refugee nobleman, who had given lessons in Italian to Frith's daughters. He is arguing over his cab fare. Then comes a bride, bridegroom and two bridesmaids. On the right an arrest is being made, the Scotland Yard detectives were modelled by the artists John Brett and Benjamin Robert Haydon, re-enacting a well-known episode at the time.

In what the Art Journal called 'one of the boldest speculations even in this speculative age', The Railway Station was bought in 1862 by the celebrated London dealer Louis Victor Flatow for £4,500 (approx. £266,000 in 2018), with a £750 bonus for keeping it out of the Royal Academy exhibition. The endevour was an immense success, with 83,000 people filing through Flatow's gallery to inspect the painting, at a cost of 1 shilling per person. The painting subsequently went on to tour the provinces, as well as appearing at international exhibitions in Philadelphia and Paris, where it caused a similar sensation.

Frith painted several smaller versions of The Railway Station, including a version in the New Walk Art Gallery, Leicester. Technical examination of this picture has established it was painted by Frith himself but at a considerably later date than the original.

Signed: W.P. Frith.