In 1894, Russian artist Nikolay Kasatkin painted this picture of poor women and children gathering chunks of Coal in a worked-out coal mine.
According to the Virtual Russian Museum, the painting describes: "one of the gloomy paradoxes of the industrial revolution in Russia. While their fathers and husbands are mining for anthracite underground, the women and children attempt to make ends meet by scouring the site of an old mine for scraps of coal. The expressiveness of the depicted scene — resolved as an everyday, repetitive action — is increased by the slag heaps, gaping potholes and lifeless landscape."
