The Old Mare - The Best Horse
Currier & Ives, the leading American printer and publisher of lithographs from the mid-1850s to 1907, created thousands of affordable prints that appealed to popular taste, as exemplified by this humorous winter sleigh race on a country road. Scott Leighton was a skilled painter of horses, as well as of landscapes. After Currier & Ives published prints based on a selection of Leighton's art, his popularity increased. In this scene, he depicted thee one-horse sleighs racing: a woman passenger tries to steady herself in a sleigh that is airborne as it is pulled by its runaway gray horse, which is neck-to-neck with a brown horse rearing frantically because its left foreleg is caught inside a top hat--much to the consternation of the sleigh driver. At left, the third sleigh trails a bit behind the other two. Behind them, one can glimpse a stunned, hatless man sitting on the road after being thrown from one of the sleighs. Currier & Ives aggressively marketed such captivating pictures showing amusing aspects of American life as a suitable, inexpensive way to decorate private homes and public buildings.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Old Mare - The Best Horse
- Artist: Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton (American, Auburn, Maine 1847–1898 Waverly, Massachusetts)
- Publisher: Lithographed and published by Currier & Ives (American, active New York, 1857–1907)
- Date: 1881
- Medium: Lithograph, printed in color
- Dimensions: Image: 15 3/4 × 23 3/4 in. (40 × 60.4 cm)
Image with text: 17 5/16 × 23 3/4 in. (44 × 60.4 cm)
Sheet: 19 7/8 × 27 15/16 in. (50.5 × 71 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Bequest of Adele S. Colgate, 1962
- Object Number: 63.550.29
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Multiple artists/makers
1881
Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton
Currier & Ives
1881
Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton
Currier & Ives
1883
Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton
Currier & Ives
1883
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Affiches Américaines, Charles Lévy
1891
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.