"At the Railroad Station"
Medium
Graphite, black and red chalk, heightened with white
Dimensions
12 3/8 x 16 3/4 in. (31.4 x 42.6 cm) Top corners rounded.
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1958
Accession Number
58.512.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the mid-19th century, Pierre-Numa Bassaget, known simply as Numa, captured the thrill of modernity in his drawing *At the Railroad Station* (1850–59). This lively scene depicts a bustling crowd of men and women at a train platform, evoking the excitement and chaos of Europe's burgeoning rail network. Created during a transformative era when railroads revolutionized travel and commerce—France's lines expanded dramatically in the 1850s—Numa's work offers a vivid snapshot of everyday life amid industrial progress, before photography fully dominated such documentation. Rendered in graphite, bl...