Winter in the Country: The Old Grist Mill

During the 1850s and early 1860s, George H. Durrie specialized in making landscapes and idyllic rural scenes. When the Currier & Ives printing firm selected ten of Durrie's paintings to be made into lithographs, Durrie's charming winter images became immensely popular with a vast public. In this snow-covered rural scene, a man followed by a small dog walks up the road towards a farm house, where a two horse-drawn sleigh is parked alongside and two men stand conversing at the entry. Nearby, a woman gets water from the outdoor well, while the smoke puffing from the house chimneys promises warmth indoors on this wintry morning. At left, men are shown tending to chores outside a barn and other farm buildings. In the barnyard, a man carrying a load of hay on a pitchfork approaches two cows sheltered in a small shed; another man enters the open barn door, while chickens feed outside nearby. While hinting at the winter hardships of country life, the artist emphasized the scene's picturesque qualities, inspired by the Connecticut landscape, where he lived.

Nathaniel Currier, who established a successful New York-based lithography firm in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century America. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (1824-1895), the accounting-savvy brother-in-law of Nathaniel's brother Charles, was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes, or rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments.