Work, a painting by Ford Madox Brown, is generally considered to be his most important achievement.

It attempts to portray, both literally and analytically, the totality of the Victorian social system and the transition from a rural to an urban economy.

The painting had been commissioned by Thomas Plint, a well-known collector of Pre-Raphaelite art, who died before its completion.

Brown had begun the painting in 1852 and completes it in 1865, when he sets up a special exhibition to showcase it along with several of his other works.

Each character represents a particular social class and role in the modern urban environment.

He writes a detailed catalogue explaining the significance of the picture.

The picture depicts a group of so-called "Navvies" digging up the road to build a system of underground tunnels.

It is typically assumed that these were part of the extensions of London's sewerage system, which were being undertaken to deal with the threat of typhus and cholera.

The workers are in the center of the painting.

On either side of them are individuals who are either unemployed or represent the leisured classes.

Behind the workers are two aristocrats on horseback, whose progress along the road has been halted by the excavations.

The painting also portrays an election campaign, evidenced by posters and people carrying sandwich boards with the name of the candidate "Bobus".

A poster also draws attention to the potential presence of a burglar.

The scene is set on The Mount on Heath Street in Hampstead, London, a side road which rises up from the main road and runs alongside it.

Brown had made a detailed study of the location in 1852.

Brown's concern with the social issues addressed in Work prompts him to open a soup kitchen for Manchester's hungry, and to attempt to aid the city's unemployed to find work by founding a labor exchange.