Crowned Heads, from An Overland Journey to the Great Exhibition

London's Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was held in 1851 at the Crystal Palace, a huge glass-and-cast-iron hall specially erected in Hyde Park. International displays devoted to art, technology, and manufacturing delighted six million visitors over a five-month period. Humorist Richard Doyle commemorated the multinational character of the event with a panoramic wood engraving that gently makes fun of the participants. Eight panels approach nine feet in length when fully opened, but fold neatly into cardboard covers and can be viewed a few at a time. In this first scene, symbolic animals represent various nations. The group is led by an American eagle wearing a straw hat and holding a pistol, followed by a England's crowned lion arm-in-arm with France's cockerell and Prussia's eagle. They are followed by Austro-Hungary's paired eagles, the Russian bear, Turkish lion, and India's elephant, with the Scottish unicorn providing an elegant coda. Doyle used a medley of stereotypes to comment ironically on the fair's vaunted internationalism.