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3 unusual facts about William Powell Frith


Claude Duval

One particularly famous one — placed in more than one location and later published by William Pope — claims that he took only a part of his potential loot from a gentleman when his wife agreed to dance the "courante" with him in the wayside, a scene immortalised by William Powell Frith in his 1860 painting Claude Du Val.

Crossing sweeper

Crossing sweepers also found their way into 19th century fiction and artwork, including a novel by Charles Dickens and a popular painting by William Powell Frith.

William Powell Frith

He followed this with The Derby Day, depicting scenes among the crowd at the race at Epsom Downs, which was based on photographic studies by Robert Howlett.


William Holl the Younger

In the 1840s his major works were engravings after William Powell Frith, illustrating the poems of Thomas Moore "Beauties of Moore" (1840) and scriptural engravings after various artists such as Raphael, Rembrandt, Benjamin West and James Northcote for inclusion in Blackie & Sons' Imperial Family Bible (1844) and John Kitto's Gallery of Scripture Engravings (1846–49).


see also

Ernest Gambart

Among his best selling reproductions were William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World (1858), an inspiring and highly influential image of Christ, and William Powell Frith's The Derby Day (1858).