Some 50 people enjoy an Independence Day outing in the sunshine, gathering in conversation or buying food and beer from a street vendor tabling on the lower left.

Country bumpkins gape in amazement, a fashionable lady shades her eyes to see more clearly, mischievous boys clamber over the fence encircling the sculpture, a well-dressed Black couple stand nearby, and a plainly dressed Quaker man lectures his son while his wife furtively peers at the statue over his shoulder.

[4][5] In the background looms a Greek Revival building, the city waterworks' pumping station designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and celebrated as an engineering marvel.

A writer in Port Folio praised the work as a "pleasing representation" that is "truly Hogarthian, and full of meaning," but complained that Krimmel's use of color, light, shade, and other technical aspects revealed his want of experience, "which can only be gained by unremitting industry and application.

Likewise entitled Fourth of July Celebration in Centre Square, this work features more patriotic and kinetic imagery, including a portrait of George Washington beneath an American flag, a painting of the Battle of New Orleans mounted below a Pennsylvania regimental flag, several men in military dress uniforms, and troops on parade in the background.