The Rural Lake
Frances Flora Bond Palmer American, born England
Lithographed and published by Currier & Ives American
Not on view
This serene rural scene shows three people in a rowboat on a small lake, with a couple at right preparing to launch another boat, and a house on the far shore.
When Frances "Fanny" Flora Bond Palmer moved to New York from England in 1844 she was thirty-two and an accomplished artist and printmaker. Initially, Fanny and her husband Seymour operated a small print-shop in lower Manhattan, similar to one they had run in Leicester (United Kingdom). In 1849, the couple moved to Brooklyn after the business closed. Nathaniel Currier recognized Palmer’s talent and began to buy her drawings to use as print designs. After Currier & Ives was established in 1857 she became a staff artist. As a designer able to transfer images to lithographic stones for printing, Palmer produced more than 200 prints for the firm and today is regarded as a leading woman lithographer of the period, and is particularly admired for her evocative landscapes.