The Four Seasons of Life – Middle Age: "The Season of Strength"

Over the centuries, the seasons have been used as a natural metaphor for the cyclical nature of life. After the disruption of the American Civil War, Currier & Ives produced a series of prints, titled "The Four Seasons of Life," which offered promising images of family contentment, prosperity and serenity. These images of "Childhood," "Youth," "Middle Age" (an autumn domestic scene depicted here), and "Old Age" represented the ideals of daily life in rural, middle class America.

In this sentimental scene set in the well-furnished foyer of a country home, a mother, toddler and two young girls warmly greet a father and young boy. As the father reaches to take the baby from his mother's arms, their son, holding his straw hat, pats the family's black dog, which carries the father's walking stick in its mouth. At left, through the window and open door, there is a vista of an early autumn landscape with a river. Two four-line stanzas of a verse are imprinted beneath the image: "But as the hues of summer fade away, / And varying tints, the days of autumn bring; / So life's autumnal season, brings its grey, / And cares like ivy, to our pleasures cling. / Sweet cares when home, and loving hearts , are ours, / And loving lips, breathe forth their welcome song, / For them we labor through the passing hours, / And bear our burdens, thankful we are strong." Currier & Ives took much care to visualize the virtues of family devotion in two versions of this "Middle Age-The Season of Strength" image; this is the second version, since the lithography stone used to print the first version cracked and broke.

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.