Central Park – The Bridge
Publisher Currier & Ives American
Not on view
This print describes the cast iron Bow Bridge in New York's Central Park, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, and completed in 1862. It measures 87 feet and is the largest bridge in the park. The scene is enlivened with figures in covered rowboat and swans on the water.
The New York firm of Currier & Ives grew from a printing business established by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) in 1835. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). The firm operated until 1907, lithographing over 4,000 subjects for distribution across America and Europe with popular categories including landscape, marines, natural history, genre, caricatures, portraits, history and foreign views. Until the 1880s, images were printed in monochrome, then hand-colored by women who worked for the company.
