The land divided
A c. 1914 Panamanian postage stamp design reproduced from a Smithsonian Libraries book on interoceanic canals, published in Flint, Michigan, by J.H. Davis Reynolds. The book's pictures are printed stamp artwork: a framed black-and-white layout with scrolled corner ornaments, lettering set in banners, and a central vignette of dense jungle terrain with a pale canal line and the names Colón and Panamá marked. A designer could take from it the use of bold ornamental framing, banded inscriptions and a high-contrast black vignette with small place labels.
