Segovia, The Aqueduct from Market, from Castilian Days

Joseph Pennell · 1903

Medium

Litho crayon with stumping and erasing, with traces of white gouache, on cream textured transfer paper

Original size

28.2 × 21.7 cm (11 1/8 × 8 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Pennell's view of Segovia's great Roman aqueduct seen from the market below captures the peculiar drama of ancient stone rising out of everyday life — vendors and pedestrians dwarfed by two millennia of engineering. Joseph Pennell was one of the foremost American printmakers of his generation, equally at home with etching and lithography, and a tireless documenter of European architecture at a moment when industrialisation was beginning to alter it. His technique here — litho crayon worked with stumping and selective erasing on textured transfer paper — produces a characteristic softness in the shadows while keeping the aqueduct's arches crisply delineated, a balance that photography of the era simply could not achieve. The traces of white gouache suggest he was finessing highlights in the studio after working on location, refining the tonal drama rather than just transcribing it. Pennell was a close friend and devoted biographer of James McNeill Whistler, and his sensitivity to atmosphere and tone owes something to that long association. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Pennell's lithographic tones into the warmth and physical presence of oil paint, preserving the monumental stillness he found in that Castilian morning light while giving the image a depth and texture suited to the wall rather than the portfolio.