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Thomas W. Evans's Landau Carriage

Thomas W. Evans's Landau Carriage, ca. 1860
Labourdette (Paris)
#1912.0005.0218
IMG_0361 copy-3

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Thomas W. Evans Collection

Dr. Evans's landau carriage was made by the luxury carriage-maker Labourdette in Paris in the 1860s. It is a city vehicle with a folding leather top, granting its occupants maximum visibility in public. Coachman-driven, it is a four-seater with facing seats, perfect for an urban ride that doubled as an imperative social occasion. The carriage is of a restrained black, both inside (where it was opposed to in dark leather) and out; the monogram of Thomas W. Evans, graces both doors. It is a carriage perhaps most notable for the fact that Dr. Evans used it to transport the Empress Eugénie from Paris to Deauville on September 5, 1870, one day after the Second Empire fell and the Third Republic was announced in Paris.