Lot 53: The first and second-class waiting room

Carl Henrik D'Unker (Swedish, 1828-1866)
The first and second-class waiting room
oil on canvas
27½ x 40 1/8 in. (69.8 x 101.8 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Beijers, Stockholm, 23 April 1985, lot 19.

Carl Henrick D'Unker studied in Dusseldorf under K. Sohn, and after some European travel he returned to Sweden. When he lost his right arm in an accident, he re-learnt to paint using his left, specialising in scenes of contemporary Stockholm. Railway stations served British and Continental artists as perhaps the definitive manifestation of the changes being wrought throughout the landscape and society of the 19th Century.

The First and Second-class Waiting Room , executed circa 1860, sits comfortably within the Victorian tradition of contemporary genre painting popularised in the 1850s by pictures such as William Powell Frith's Ramsgate Sands (1854), and perhaps most memorably in Derby Day (1856-8). The compositional possibilities of large crowd scenes gave artists the opportunity to explore the juxtaposition of different social classes in a confined space. They could highlight contrasting groups, often incorporating humorous vignettes, while illustrating more serious social issues within a single picture. When unified, all these elements offer the viewer a captivating panorama of Victorian life.

The Stockholm National Museum holds two similar paintings by the artist, (NM 1025 and NM 1321). The Second Class Waiting Room (NM 1321, executed 1865-66) depicts the same family grouping to the extreme left of the painting where a father leans over a baby held in the arms of the seated mother.