A Blackfish Nibble!: Hush! I Feel Him! Golly! You Got Him!

The late nineteenth-century Darktown prints by Currier & Ives depict racist stereotypes that are offensive and disturbing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves such works to shed light on their historical context and to enable the study and evaluation of racism.

This two-part fishing scene showing a bit of mischief resulting in "catching" a bottle instead of a fish. Left image: two older Black men (African Americans) converse in a rowboat (one, seated on a chair, faces the other, seated at the boat's stern, who holds a newspaper); they do not notice the boy leaning over the boat's side as he attaches one of the fishing lines to a red bottle. Right image: the boy is seated and seemingly engrossed with his own fishing rod and line, while the man at center stands up shocked (thereby toppling his chair) as he discovers that his fishing line "caught" a red bottle instead of a big fish; his companion roars with laughter and raises his arms in amusement.

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.