The Day of Rest
Publisher Currier & Ives American
Not on view
Arm-in-arm, a husband and wife leave their house and prepate to walk to church down a country lane. They are accompanied by a young daughter at left, and son who wears a kilt and opens the gate at left. A large tree shades their house, and a leafy arbor frames the doorway.
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.
