American Homestead – Summer
Publisher Currier & Ives American
Not on view
A wooden cottage and barn stand to the left of a road, as a man drives by in a cart pulled by two horses. At right there are cows in the field, and a river landscape beyond. 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.