Industries of the British Empire, Rockefeller Center

  • Date: 1933
  • Sculptor: Carl Paul Jennewein
  • Medium & size: Gilded bronze relief, 18 feet high by 11 feet wide
  • Location: British Empire Building (Rockefeller Center), over the main entrance of 620 Fifth Ave., between 49th and 50th Streets.

Carl Paul Jennewein, Industries of the British Empire, 1933. Rockefeller Center, New York. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

Historical economy

These figures represent the British Empire’s major sources of income in the 1930s.

  • Salt, Wheat, Wool

  • Coal, Fish, Cotton

  • Tobacco, Seaman, Sugar

At the lower edge of the relief, just above the the door, the sun refers to the saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”

Above the relief are the arms of Britain.

More

  • The official Rockefeller Center page for this work is here.
  • A favorite quote from a 19th-c. British politician: “I hold that the real policy of England – apart from questions which involve her own particular interests – is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done.” –Lord Palmerston, remarks in House of Commons defending his foreign policy, 3/1/1848
  • Churchill on taxes and the economy: “To think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man thinking that he can stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle.” – from “Why I Am a Free Trader,” 1905
  • Churchill to the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister 5/13/1940: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
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