Winter Morning, Feeding the Chickens

During the 1850s and early 1860s, George H. Durrie specialized in making landscapes and idyllic rural scenes. When the Currier & Ives printing firm selected ten of Durrie's paintings to be made into lithographs, Durrie's charming winter images became immensely popular with a vast public. This print features a lovely snow-covered setting with a woman and a child scattering feed to chickens outside a farmhouse, depicted at the far right. An abandoned sleigh sits on the driveway, while at the left, three cows stand in the barnyard near a barn. The picture is accented by leafless trees and a central view of distant mountains. Instead of showing the hardships of farming in winter, the artist idealizes the wholesome benefits of country life.

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 America. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (1824-1895), the accounting-savvy brother-in-law of Nathaniel's brother Charles, was made a business partner. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes, 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.