Hackney Carriage Ride

Hackney Carriage Ride on panel is Béraud's second identified work on the carriage subject, this one executed in oil on the more compact panel format rather than watercolor. The fiacre — hired carriage — was a central feature of Parisian life from the ancien régime through the early automobile era, and its passengers represented every social level from aristocracy to petite bourgeoisie. A carriage ride as subject could capture the vehicle's exterior on the street, or the social interior with its passengers in conversation or silent transit across the city. Béraud would have had ample opportunity to observe both, and the panel format's compact intimacy suits either a street sketch of a passing carriage or an interior scene of figures in transit.

Oil on panel with Béraud's typically precise figural and vehicular rendering. The carriage's structural elements — chassis, wheels, horse — provide geometric variety against the figures' more informal organic forms. The interior of a carriage, if depicted, creates an unusual enclosed compositional space that concentrates the social interaction of passengers in an intimate shared setting.