1923.60
The Stock Exchange, New York
Artist
Joseph Pennell
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7/4/1857 - 1926)
Title
The Stock Exchange, New York
Creation Date
1904
Dimensions
7 1/2 in. x 12 in. (19.1 cm. x 30.48 cm.)
Object Type
print
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
etching on paper
Credit Line
Gift of Charles A. Coffin, Honorary Degree, 1922
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
1923.60
When the newly constructed New York Stock Exchange building opened on April 22, 1903, it housed one of the largest volumes of space in the city in order to accommodate the hundreds of licensed buyers and sellers working on the trading floor. Pennell's rendering of the financial district captures that great architectural structure, and its symbolic presence, in the company of other looming structures that dominate the streetscape. Unlike his use of aquatint to create mood in Brooklyn Bridge at Night, here Pennell uses line etching to focus on architectural details such as the columns and pediments on the Neoclassical Stock Exchange building and the roofline of the adjacent architecture. This work was commissioned as part of a twelve-print edition of New York City buildings by the Society of Iconophiles, a group that strove to promote printmaking through the sale of images of New York City and its denizens. As the October 1929 Wall Street Crash revealed, the New York Stock Exchange building represents an architectural marvel as well as forces and institutions that have had an outsized impact on the city and the nation.