"Come into the Garden Maud"

In this Currier & Ives print, a black cat (named "Tabby'son") is seated on the grass as he meows a seranade to a white cat appearing at the window of a stone house (adorned by a couple of flowering vines). The print is a spoof of the poem "Come into the Garden, Maud" (also known at "Maud (Part 1") by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), which he wrote in 1854. First published in 1855, the poem--a narrative of a heartsick young man calling out to his lady love--became well-known during the Victorian era.

The print is datable to the late 1850s, shortly after the formation of the Currier & Ives firm in 1857. Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888), who had established his successful New York-based lithography firm in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of nineteenth century American life. In 1857, Currier made James Merritt Ives (1824–1895) a business partner; the Currier & Ives firm operated until 1907. Many eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes, or rural and city views, images of boats and trains, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life, humorous pictures, and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments.