Waking Up the Old Mare
Currier & Ives, the leading American printer and publisher of lithographs from the mid-1850s to 1907, created thousands of affordable prints that appealed to popular taste, as exemplified by this humorous winter sleigh race on a country road. Scott Leighton was a skilled painter of horses, as well as of landscapes. After Currier & Ives published prints based on a selection of Leighton's art, his popularity increased. In this scene he depicted an elderly couple in a sleigh pulled by an old horse straining to outrun several sleighs behind them. Currier & Ives aggressively marketed such captivating pictures showing amusing aspects of American life as a suitable, inexpensive way to decorate private homes and public buildings.
Artwork Details
- Title: Waking Up the Old Mare
- Artist: Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton (American, Auburn, Maine 1847–1898 Waverly, Massachusetts)
- Publisher: Lithographed and published by Currier & Ives (American, active New York, 1857–1907)
- Date: 1881
- Medium: Lithograph, printed in color
- Dimensions: Image: 15 3/4 × 23 7/8 in. (40 × 60.7 cm)
Sheet: 20 1/16 × 27 3/8 in. (51 × 69.5 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Bequest of Adele S. Colgate, 1962
- Object Number: 63.550.27
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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