Roadside Cottage
Publisher Currier & Ives American
Not on view
In this pastoral scene, a man opens a gate to allow sheep onto a road. Two girls play by a cottage gate at right, and a third stands waiting in the road. There is a farmhouse in the center distance.
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 brother-in-law 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 at home.