Many people are riding on and crowding around a large horse-drawn carriage. Wood engraving by M. Jackson, 1862, after A. Hunt.

The persons shown in the engraving are described as types in the Illustrated London news, loc. cit.: "An Easter excursion-van. … Easter in London is worshipped merely by embarking in a "wan," and a drive to 'Ampton Court or "the Forrest." Nor is it, after all, a bad way of sacrificing to the shrine of "Saint Monday." Let not our reader sneer at the short and simple pleasures of the poor. Has he or she, honourable or right honourable, ever ridden in a "wan" ? A good one, mind you; gaily painted and with curtains, easy springs (not C springs and Collinge's patent axles, but easy enough), with three horses upon great occasions, two rusty chestnuts, and a grey which has not any definite idea of his position as a leader. To "one who has been long in city pent," and who is thoroughly tired out with an endless meal of brick, there are few places more delightful than a "wan", a splendid van, which for 2s. 6d., paid by instalments, starts from the greengrocer's next door to the Soho dairy, to the envy, delight, and disturbance of the neighbourhood. The very blackbird which hangs outside the greengrocer's first floor brightens up, and his neighbour the lark, seated on a new turf, carols something in true bird language about a far-off country sky and a cornfield. At the given time, when the van has been for some half hour the admiration of all the boys in the neighbourhood, the happy passengers crowd into it. There is the little tailor, who has clothed half the street in quaintly-cut garments, and the greengrocer himself, a great authority. being, both by his calling and birth. distantly connected with the country. There is the local printer who, having resided in a Midland town with a corn market, will talk about the crops; the next to him, in a jaunty hat sits the sporting gent, …"

A chemist's shop is shown on the left. In the backgound is a church on a rural hillside, suggesting that the print shows the return journey

[London] : [Illustrated London news]

1 print : wood engraving ; image 16.8 x 23.5 cm

Easter Monday: The excursion-van - Drawn by A. Hunt. See p. 394. A. Hunt. M. Jackson sc.

Alfred William Hunt (1829 or 1830-1896) was primarily a landscape painter: it is not certain whether he was the author of this work

Wellcome Collection 33229i