Laying the Floor of Pedro Miguel Lock

Pennell, a Philadelphia-born Quaker, spent the first two decades of his career abroad, living primarily in London, where he became a close associate of Whistler. This lithograph was made after the artist toured Panama and looked at the engineering works in progress for the Panama Canal. Of this subject, he wrote, "One of the most stupendous, most decorative compositions I have ever seen. When I asked the engineer--Mr. Williamson--how he had come to make the splendid springing lines of his arches and buttresses, he said it was one done to save concrete. Yet the result is as fine as the flying buttresses of a cathedral. The floor of the lock is crowded with men, the walls at the tope, with concrete forming crenellatoins, were crowded; and with the cries of bosses, the shrieks of whistles, and the blasts of explosions, it seemed like a siege. But all was peaceful." Fifty proofs were printed.