The Catskill Mountains, from the Eastern Shore of the Hudson

The print features a dramatic vista of the Hudson River, navigated by two steamships and several sailboats, and the Catskill Mountains beyond. On a road in the foreground, a man drives a wagon, drawn by a pair of white horses, past a white house and a few other buildings set on a wooded hillside. A town is on the opposite shore. The artist Frances Flora (Fanny) Palmer was skilled in capturing picturesque aspects of New York's scenery and daily life that appealed to collectors then, and still today.

Nathaniel Currier, who established a successful New York-based lithography firm 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. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with James Merritt Ives (1824–1895), the brother-in-law of Nathaniel's younger brother Charles, who also worked in the firm. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes like this one, or rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. Although it was unusual for a woman to achieve such prominence in a printing firm, Palmer was one of the most important artists working for Nathaniel Currier, and later Currier and Ives, between 1849 and 1868, when she produced approximately 200 of the firm's best landscapes and most engaging scenes of daily life.