The Railway Station

It depicts a scene at the busy Paddington Station railway terminus of the Great Western in London. Frith had developed a reputation for producing crowd scenes of everyday life, including Ramsgate Sands (1854) and The Derby Day (1858). Frith himself was doubtful about the potential work noting "I don't think the station at Paddington could be called picturesque, nor can the clothes of the ordinary traveller be said to offer much attraction to the painter", but was persuaded by his art dealer Louis Flatow who offered him reportedly the largest commission fee ever offered to an artist.^[3]

The panorama represents all social classes of Victorian society, using the still relatively new railway system. On the right, two detectives are arresting a man as he attempts to board a train.^[3]

• Green, Oliver. London's Great Railway Stations. Frances Lincoln, 23 Nov 2021
• Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. William Powell Frith: The People's Painter. Bloomsbury, 2019.
• Trotter, David. William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age. Yale University Press, 2006