Queen Victoria, and most of her subjects, regarded William Powell Frith as a great artist. His work had a whale of a lot of work in it, and that seemed a good thing to the Victorian eye. Frith spent two busy years on his 3-ft.-by-7-ft. Derby Day, crammed the canvas with 3,000 spectators: a happy, seething mob of dandies, shell-game sharpers, yokels, gypsies, fine ladies, jockeys, kids and carnival performers on the green grass of Epsom Downs, under a smiling summer sky. The Royal Academy voted it "Picture of the Year" in 1858, and London's National Gallery hung it in a...
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