Art, Horse Racing and the ‘Sporting’ Gaze in Mid-Nineteenth Century England: William Powell Frith's The Derby Day

Abstract

This paper draws on social and art history, cultural studies and ‘gaze theory’ to explore how William Powell Frith's painting of Derby Day, and the various responses to it, shed light on the Epsom Derby horse race and the ways in which its multiple meanings as a mega-event were produced and exchanged in Victorian society. It continues the recent trend of using a wider range of visual methodologies to explore the history of sport. It begins by setting the painting in its cultural, social and racing context, and exploring how the painting was created by Frith. It moves on to explore some of its possible readings, and analysing some of the different gazes through which the meanings of the painting can be read, including those of the artist, the characters, the critics and the spectators visiting the work. In so doing themes such as class, gender, reception and spectatorship, the relationship between popular and elite culture, and the representation of workers, women and ethnic minorities are explored.