After being at Miss Havisham’s, Pip describes his visit to his sister, Joe and Mr. Pum-
blechook in the most incredible pictures. He tells them, that Miss Havisham was a dark
lady residing in a coach, which is in her living room, while four huge dogs were playing
around and Pip and Estella wave flags and brandish swords.
Of course, all this happened only in the mind of Pip. What really went on is depicted in
the previous chapter, where he played and lost at beggar-my-neighbour with Estella. He
forces himself to tell such lies at Mr. Pumblechook, who affirmes all of them, revealing
what a vainglorious character he is, and his sister, because he fears they wouldn’t believe
the hard and sad truth about a rich woman, who lives a desperate life in a seclused room
and feeds on her bad memories. Later he uncovers his lies to Joe alone, because he feels
guilty lying to his only friend at his home.
The drawing of the picture was quite as adventurous as its subject. I did some re-
search on the composition of a stage coach, although, in the book Pumblechook, lying of
course, describes the coach as a sedan chair, which is something like a small twoseater.
I watched documentaries and even studied plans. Finally, I knew the right proportions
and had even some basic understanding on the build-up of a stage coach.
I went forward to model the room in a 3D-environment and took pictures under the
right angle with the help of a fish-eye effect, which is visible in the final picture, if you
pay close attention to the curved walls to the right.
The dogs I copied more or less from photographs, rotating them in mind in the right
angle. The two dogs fighting over a veal-cutlet on the right ended up to be a little
convoluted. Even I, when drawing the detail, didn’t know which was which.
The space enclosed by the fighting dogs and the wheels of the coach show a rug covered
with folds. This almost hidden detail was inspired by Jacques-Louis David’s painting
Napoleon in his study at the tuileries from 1810, where Napoleon is standing on a sim-
ilar discomposed rug, an ingenious detail which underlines his restlessness. Really, I’ve
known the picture for many, many years and have only till recently noticed these beautiful
folds on the bottom of the picture.
My opinion regarding this picture is divided. On one part I really liked the wild topic,
but on the other I have some critique on the realisation. Many details are undiscernible
and the dogs seem to belong to another picture than the coach.
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