American Homestead – Spring

Flowering trees shelter ewes and lamps on grass at right, and a wooden house with a deep porch is shown at left within a fenced yard. A figure carries buckets from a well, a man plows behind the house, and three children sit in the left foreground. One of a set of four prints devoted to the seasons.

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.