"Getting a Hoist": A Bad Case of Heaves

Thomas Worth, among America’s prolific nineteenth-century illustrators, excelled at drawing scenes relating to horses, hunting, and other subjects, many of which were made into popular lithographs published by Currier & Ives.

This comic scene shows a farrier trying to shoe a horse in a wooden barn interior. The horse, its bridle tied to a hook on the wall at right, kicks up its hind legs, thereby causing the farrier and his tools to fly into the air. Beneath the airborne farrier, who literally grits his teeth as he grips the horse's hind leg, a stable boy has fallen to the floor with his broom.
























Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888), 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. Subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued via their successors until 1907. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as those featuring spectacular American landscapes, rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life, comic situations and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments.