Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward

Realism Abroad

Luke Fildes

Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward

1874

Oil on canvas, 137.1 × 243.7 cm. Royal Holloway, University of London

Homeless men, women and children wait in the snow outside a London night shelter.

  • It grew from Fildes's 1869 illustration Houseless and Hungry for the weekly The Graphic.
  • At the Royal Academy in 1874, Royal Holloway says, the painting needed "a barrier and a police officer" to protect it from the crowds.
  • It was bought for Thomas Holloway in 1883.
  • The homeless poor, unidealized, given the finish of an Academy picture.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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