Third-Class Carriage is one of many pictures Daumier painted of passengers on trains, a novel form of transport in the nineteenth century. The growth of France's railway network under the Second Empire (1852-1870) made travel swifter and more accessible, but the journey was not the same for everyone. Railway companies separated passengers into three classes through a tiered ticketing system that corresponded to the level of comfort onboard. Here Daumier depicted travelers who have paid the lowest fare: a peasant mother and child, an old woman, and a worker in a rumpled smock. Crowded together with other passengers in a dark compartment, these careworn figures exemplify Daumier’s unapologetic Realism.