Putting on His Airs

In this print, a dashingly dressed man rears his gray-dappled horse in front of a stone house, where two women are seated at a window and watch him (upper right).The man is dressed in a top hat, sun glasses, a blue frock coat, a light tan vest, and cream-colored trousers. A dog runs alongside the horse. The woman at left wears a red blouse trimmed in lace, while the other woman is dressed in a pale yellow outfit. At left, there is a road leading to green trees in the distance.

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.
　































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.

In this print, a caricatured, wide-eyed Black (African American) man has wrapped his arms and legs around the smokestack of a train engine (the locomotive --in a cropped side view--heads from right to left). A large bicycle wheel loops around the man's legs-- evidence that he had been riding a high-wheeled bicycle and collided into the train. The ttle and caption --imprinted in bottom margin-- imply that the accident has knocked the man's head so severely that instead of "seeing stars," he says --in his crazy daze-- that he has "struck a comet."

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.