(c) Tate, London 2001

Derby Day (1858) by William Powell Frith.  This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1858. It was so popular and drew such huge crowds that a protective railing had to be erected in front of it, with a policeman standing on guard nearby. Along with various other panoramic paintings, Derby Day guaranteed Frith's international reputation. It also afforded him great financial gain because he sold a large number of steel engravings of the painting to an eager public.

The Derby, like the Royal Academy exhibition at which the painting by William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was shown, was an event that people went to in order to look at each other as much as at horses or paintings. The composition of Frith's painting makes this clear: horses are just about visible in the background, but no-one is looking at them. In a later painting, The Private View at the Royal Academy, Frith makes the same point about art exhibitions. The settings for the paintings by Brown and Egley, similarly, were public spaces--the street and a public transport vehicle--where the members of different social classes could look at one another. However, in a painting such scrutiny could be prolonged and intensive (an hour was reckoned the time needed to look properly at Derby Day). Those who might otherwise risk hostility, unpleasantness or even violence in a real crowd could look safely. Queen Victoria, for example, whose reception by the crowd at the Derby on her first visit in 1840 was so cool that she never actually went again, was able to enjoy the contemplation of the painted spectacle in a way that she could not enjoy the reality.

n described as one of the most meticulously observed of all costume-studies in the mid-nineteenth century. The top hats of the men, for example, are swathed with coloured veils known as 'puggarees' which could be pulled down over the face to keep off dust during the journey to the race and, once there, provided protection from sun and flies. Details of dress go together with the depiction of physiognomy to provide the viewer with clues to each character's social standing and personality: the aristocrats wear long jackets, 'paletots' and top hats, the 'city gent' is defined by his attempt to copy the dress of the elite, the country yokel wears a smock, and so on. Frith made studies from models for all the prominent figures: he found the acrobats at Drury Lane, and they started modelling for him, but were unused to the work, so he bought their clothes from them and transferred them to professional models. The general effect of the variety in dress is to establish the social hierarchy, clearly distinguishing rich from poor. The Derby was a venue similar to the Great Exhibition, where, it was thought, all ranks could mingle in apparent equality. Frith's types are carefully selected to convey this impression.

Viewers of paintings evidently appreciated the care that artists put into their delineation of dress. The critic of the Athenaeum, a magazine of the time, wrote: 'the technical painting is deserving of all praise--imitation with breadth scarcely being capable of being carried further than the brown plaid trowsers of the ruined gent, in which we can not only trace the very cord and twill, but almost the degree of wear and the extent of nap and fibre.' The same critic went on: 'we must give a word of praise to the quiet sense of beauty with which Mr Frith has treated the ladies' dresses--the neutral colours, the lilacs and dove-colours, are so telling and yet so modest--that we seem to be gazing at an ideal of fashion and transcendental millinery--such as milliners dream of, but never see.' This second comment is interesting: it seems to suggest that Frith has picked out the new colours made possible by aniline dyes (the critic mentions lavender as well as lilac), but has avoided their more garish manifestations. The brightest colours in the painting are the reds, worn not by the rich but by the poor, and thus the painting demonstrates restrained taste, both in the artists and in the aristocratic ladies he represents.

(c) Tate, London 2001

Detail from Derby Day (1858).

The 'natural' effect was achieved with a considerable degree of artifice. A country labourer probably would not have worn his smock to the Derby--this was, after all, working dress. But without his smock he would be indistinguishable from others in the crowd. Similarly, the pretty woman in the centre, who stands to show off her fashionable flounced dress (product of the new technology, the sewing machine and, probably, the crinoline), is a deliberate artistic ploy. Women generally stayed in the carriages, where they were safe from pickpockets and other hazards. This figure occupies an important role in the composition--placed centrally, and in colours which stand out from those around her, she is a symbol of conspicuous consumption and commodity fetishism, demonstrating beauty and technological advance at one and the same time.