Jay Eye Sore -- De Great World Beater: "When dat colt am warmed he kin lay 'em all out!"

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 a Black (African American) sulky driver and his broken-down harness racing donkey, named "Jay Eye Sore" (as the title tells us), on the race track. Depicted in a side view, the donkey pulls a make-shift two-wheeled buggy from left to right; the wheels are patched; and there is a block of wood as the driver's seat. The buggy's poles (carriage shaft) are secured to the donkey by a rope wrapped around its mid-section; stirrups are tied to its front hooves as horseshoes. The:driver, wearing a cap with an extra long visor, holds a club with three nails (a hand-made crop); his feet are placed on the donkey's rump. Three Black judges are in the stand (left background). A crowd of Black men are in the background -- extending from the judges's stand to the right edge of the image. The title and caption "De Great World Beater" are imprinted in the bottom margin.

The donkey's name "Jay Eye Sore" is a take off on the name of an actual horse, "Jay Eye See" -- a pun of the initials of the owner's name, Jerome Increase Case, who was an American threshing machine manufacturer based in Wisconsin. This harness racing horse notably broke the trotting record in 1884, and then broke the pacing record in 1892 -- a newsworthy event that provides the proposed dating for this Currier & Ives print. The feat was widely celebrated --prompting the creation of several Currier & Ives prints, in addition to the Case company using the horse's image to advertise some of its products. When the horse died in 1909 at the age of thirty-one, there was even an obituary mention in The New York Times (June 27, 1909).

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored 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.