In the Land of Brobdingnag: The Armour Plate Bending Presses from the series American War Work by Joseph Pennell

In the Land of Brobdingnag: The Armour Plate Bending Presses  from the series American War Work by Joseph Pennell

In the Land of Brobdingnag: The Armour Plate Bending Presses from the series American War Work

Joseph Pennell

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

In the Land of Brobdingnag: The Armour Plate Bending Presses from the series American War Work

 
Artist

Joseph Pennell

  1857 - 1926 (biography)
Year
1917  
Technique
lithograph 
Image Size
15 3/4 x 20 3/4" iamge 
Signature
pencil, lower center 
Edition Size
fifty proofs 
Annotations
 
Reference
Wuerth 484; LOC 812; this image was used as the cover illustration for the book: "Joseph Pennell's Pictures of War Work in America," J.B. Lippincott Co. 
Paper
cream, laid MBM Ingres d Arches watermarked 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
13426 
Price
$800.00 
Description

An image from a series of large lithographs Pennell did in 1917 of the factories producing steel products for the war effort. The title, Brobdingnag, is taken from Jonathan Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels, and was the fictional land occupied by giants. The adjective 'Brobdingnagian' has come to describe anything of colossal size.

Joseph Pennell commented on this image: "Only Swift never imagined and Gulliver never saw presses and ladles and chains and cranes like these; but I have seen them, and there is no imagination in my study of the press or the ladle. A press so powerful it will slowly bend the thickest plate. A ladle so big the men were lost in it."

 

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.