Cutter Genesta, Royal Yacht Squadron
Charles Richard Parsons American
LIthographed and published by Currier & Ives American
Not on view
In this nautical print, the British cutter Genesta sails to the right, with other sailboats in the background. Designed by John Beavor-Webb, she was built for Sir Richard Sutton, 5th Baronet, of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, Isle of Wight, and was the English challenger in the America's Cup of 1885, racing against Puritan.
The New York firm of Currier & Ives (established by Nathaniel Currier, who formed a partnership with James Merritt Ives in 1857), made more than 7,000 lithographs between 1835 and 1907 for distribution across America and Europe. They offered images of almost everything animal, vegetable, or mineral in the United States, and issued landscapes, genre subjects, caricatures, portraits, historical scenes, foreign views and reproductions of art works. One popular sub-category concerned sailboats and racing. The pictures were drawn on lithographic stones, printed in monochrome, then generally hand-colored by women who worked for the firm at home.
