Oil on canvas. 'The Crossing Sweeper' (1893) shows a young boy imploring a well-dressed middle-class woman for recompense having swept the muddy street before her. With the high level of horse drawn traffic, crossing sweepers were a common sight on the streets of Victorian London. Although sweepers were viewed by many as a nuisance and little more than beggars, there was also a degree of empathy for them, particularly for those who were children. William Powell Frith's painting shamelessly appeals to this empathy, showing the earnest request of a bare footed, ragged young boy in sharp contrast to the beautiful and fashionably dressed woman.
Frith painted this composition twice before, some 35 years earlier in 1858. The only notable change to the earlier versions is the style of the woman's dress, which has been updated to represent the fashions of the 1890s. Frith frequently produced paintings on the radical subject of different social classes rubbing shoulders, a theme more commonly reserved for the illustrations of 'Punch' magazine than fine art.
Towards the end of his career and with two families to support, Frith struggled financially and was less willing to take risks artistically. His earlier versions of this painting had proved highly popular and easily saleable, making this subject an obvious choice to return to as a 'pot-boiler' in his later years. Unable to afford retirement, Frith continued to paint to the end of his life. He died of pneumonia at the age of 90, at his home in St John's Wood.