Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and entrepreneur Size:L: 75 x 50cm The lower margin contains verse

The lower margin contains verse

or a Sketch of the Times'

'The Honourable Henry Cavendish'

Showing the inscription lower left 'P Sluiter Sculp

When out the hellish legion sallied'

Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and entrepreneur Size:L: 75 x 50cm The lower margin contains verseFerdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and entrepreneur, 1875. De Lesseps (1805 1894) built the Suez Canal to enable shipping to pass between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea rather than having to sail around the Cape of Good hope, completing the project in 1869. In 1880 he then went on to make the first attempt at building a canal to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Isthmus of Panama. A combination of the difficult terrain, a