Draw Poker--Getting 'Em Lively: "Three of a kind beat two pair."

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 depicts caricatured Black (African American) men in an interior. Three uniformed policemen break up a four-man poker game. At left, one policeman raises a small stool (in his right hand) to hit a man trying to escape up the chimney; this policeman grips the right leg of the man, who wears yellow pants (with a red seat patch). The central part of the image shows one policeman gripping the leg of a man escaping through a broken window; this policeman is about to strike the man in the window with his upraised baton. Near him, his partner raises his baton to strike a kneeling man (in a red-checked shirt), who raises his praying hands for mercy. Beneath the window, the fourth poker player sits on the floor beneath a collapsed table; he is open-mouthed with astonishment. In the central foreground, cards are scattered on the wooden floor, nearby (towards the lower left), a tipped-over pot spills its contents towards an upended stool. On the wall between the center and right side of the image, an open green wooden door is shown (behind one of the policeman). The title and caption are imprinted in the bottom margin.


Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888), 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 (1824–1895), the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law, was made a business partner. Subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued via their successors until 1907.