A Darktown Lawn Party: Music in the Air

The late nineteenth-century Darktown prints by Currier & Ives depict racist stereotypes that are offensive and disturbing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves such works to shed light on their historical context and to enable the study and evaluation of racism.

This print caricatures Black (African American) people at a picnic party. At center, a man in a formal black suit, leans over a table covered with a white table cloth (a lavish fruit display and an open bottle are on the table) to make a toast of a glass of champagne to a woman--garbed in a long brown dress patterned in turquise polka dots-- who demurely holds her glass in her right gloved hand. She is shaded by a large red umbrella, topped by a light blue pennant. At the lower right, another couple (shown partially from behind) are seated on wooden crates besides a large tree trunk as they converse and enjoy a plate of oysters. At left, two men are tending to a basket of lobsters. Across a field in the left background, a bull is charging ahead of cloud of dust. In the right background, there is a gathering of people socializing. All the people are unaware of the threatening bull. The title is imprinted in the bottom margin.

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.