Edouard Manet offers an intriguing study in contrasts and ambiguity in The Railway, starting with the relationship between the two figures. Are they mother and daughter? A nanny with a child? The girl gazes through the iron fence, where steam billows up from the tracks below. Wearing a white dress with an enormous blue bow, she is the visual opposite of the seated woman, who wears a blue ensemble with white trim topped by a fashionable black hat. The girl’s locks are held up by a thin black ribbon, while the other figure’s long hair is down. The child keeps her back to us; the woman looks us in the eye.