Carl Spitzweg, the arrival of the stagecoach - 1859

by Atelier Liesjes

Stagecoaches not only transported mail, but were also the primary means of transport for people from the 17th to the late 19th centuries. After road construction in the 18th and 19th centuries, the average speed of stagecoaches was about 6 miles per hour. The horses had to be replaced approximately every 12 miles. This gave travelers the opportunity to recover from the uncomfortable journey in guesthouses at postal and horse stations.
Spitzweg created the first version of the painting The Arrival of the Stagecoach for Kaiser Ferdinand of Austria. In an unconventional format, he managed to portray a complex scene, which showed not only the arrival of the stagecoach but also the hustle and bustle in a city by focusing on what happened in the central market. Three horses forcibly pull the carriage with four passengers from an alley to the sunny market square. The postman restrains the horses and blows his horn and announces their arrival to the inhabitants of the city, although there are already some twenty present to see the scene. Except for a young woman watering flowers on the right, they all look at the arrival and stop doing what they were doing, whether it was work or leisure. Most of the figures that Spitzweg has added to the scene decoratively are women of different social strata. Young servants fetch water from the fountain with the severely damaged figure that has lost his head and hands. To their right are two elegant ladies in fashionable and expensive dresses in t