Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
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Period: Mid-19th Century
View of Taranto - Etching by Achille Parboni - 1843
Located in Roma, IT
Image dimensions: 11.5 x 14.7 cm
Vie of Taranto is an original black and white etching on paper, realized by the Italian engraver Achille Parboni.
Printed as a plate of the prints ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
'Scene on the Wabush' original engraving by Wellstood & Kirk Pottawatomi
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Scene on the Wabash, and Potawattamie Indians" is an original hand-colored engraving, executed by Wellstood & Kirk after the original painting by George Winter. The image captures the kind of scene of the American landscape for which Winter is best known: among the lush trees and flowing rivers, Pottawatomi men, women and children relax from their travels, their horses tied...
Category
Romantic Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Pigment, Engraving
Coblenz - Original Lithograph Mid 19° Century
Located in Roma, IT
Image dimensions: 17 x 26 cm.
Coblenz is a beautiful watercolored lithograph on paper, realized by F. Foltz and published by v. J. Halenza, Mainz.
This modern artwork representing ...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Interieur de Geneve. Porte Neuve - Lithograph by A. Fontanesi
Located in Roma, IT
Image dimensions: 15 x 22 cm.
This splendid lithograph Interieur de Geneve. Porte Neuve is part of the series of 20 prints dedicated to views of the city of Geneva, engraved by the ...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Interieur de Geneve. Fontaine et Rue de Coutance - Lithograph by A. Fontanesi
Located in Roma, IT
Image dimensions: 15.7 x 20.6 cm.
This splendid lithograph Interieur de Geneve. Fontaine et Rue de Coutance is part of the series of 20 prints dedicated to views of the city of Gene...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Set of Two Mezzotint Engravings from Constable's "English Landscape Scenery"
By John Constable
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: (after) John Constable (English, 1776-1837)
Title: "View on the Orwell near Ipswich" (Plate 28) and "Hampstead Heath, Harrow in the distance" (Plate 10)
Portfolio: English La...
Category
Victorian Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Engraving, Mezzotint
19th century color lithograph landscape figures horseback house scene trees sky
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The present print is one of several examples produced for Nathaniel Currier by his longtime collaborator Frances F. "Fanny" Palmer. Harry T. Peters wrote of her: "There is no more interesting and appealing character among the group of artists who worked for Currier & Ives than Fanny Palmer. In an age when women, well-bred women in particular, did not generally work for a living Fanny Palmer for years did exacting, full-time work in order to support a large and dependent family ... Her work ... had great charm, homeliness, and a conscientious attention to detail."
One of a series of four prints showing American country life in different seasons, the image presents the viewer with a picturesque view of a successful American farm. In the foreground, a gentleman rides a horse with a young boy before a respectable Italianate country house. Two women and a young girl pick flowers in the garden and several farm workers attend to their duties. Beyond are other homes and a city on the coast.
16.63 x 23.75 inches, artwork
28.13 x 33.38 inches, frame
Entitled bottom center "American Country Life - May Morning"
Signed in the stone, lower left "F.F. Palmer, Del."
Signed in the stone, lower right "Lith. by N. Currier"
Copyrighted lower center "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855 by N. Currier in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of N.Y."
Inscribed bottom center "New York, Published by N. Currier 152 Nassau Street"
Framed to conservation standards using silk-lined 100 percent rag matting and Museum Glass with a gold gilded liner, all housed in a stained wood moulding.
Nathaniel Currier was a tall introspective man with a melancholy nature. He could captivate people with his piercing stare or charm them with his sparkling blue eyes. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27th, 1813, the second of four children. His parents, Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, were distant cousins who lived a humble yet spartan life. When Nathaniel was eight years old, tragedy struck. Nathaniel’s father unexpectedly passed away leaving Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old brother Lorenzo to provide for the family. In addition to their mother, Nathaniel and Lorenzo had to care for six-year-old sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles. Nathaniel worked a series of odd jobs to support the family, and at fifteen, he started what would become a life-long career when he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton.
A Bavarian gentleman named Alois Senefelder invented lithography just 30 years prior to young Nat Currier’s apprenticeship. While under the employ of the brothers Pendleton, Nat was taught the art of lithography by the firm’s chief printer, a French national named Dubois, who brought the lithography trade to America.
Lithography involves grinding a piece of limestone flat and smooth then drawing in mirror image on the stone with a special grease pencil. After the image is completed, the stone is etched with a solution of aqua fortis leaving the greased areas in slight relief. Water is then used to wet the stone and greased-ink is rolled onto the raised areas. Since grease and water do not mix, the greased-ink is repelled by the moisture on the stone and clings to the original grease pencil lines. The stone is then placed in a press and used as a printing block to impart black on white images to paper.
In 1833, now twenty-years old and an accomplished lithographer, Nat Currier left Boston and moved to Philadelphia to do contract work for M.E.D. Brown, a noted engraver and printer. With the promise of good money, Currier hired on to help Brown prepare lithographic stones of scientific images for the American Journal of Sciences and Arts. When Nat completed the contract work in 1834, he traveled to New York City to work once again for his mentor John Pendleton, who was now operating his own shop located at 137 Broadway. Soon after the reunion, Pendleton expressed an interest in returning to Boston and offered to sell his print shop to Currier. Young Nat did not have the financial resources to buy the shop, but being the resourceful type he found another local printer by the name of Stodart. Together they bought Pendleton’s business.
The firm ‘Currier & Stodart’ specialized in "job" printing. They produced many different types of printed items, most notably music manuscripts for local publishers. By 1835, Stodart was frustrated that the business was not making enough money and he ended the partnership, taking his investment with him. With little more than some lithographic stones, and a talent for his trade, twenty-two year old Nat Currier set up shop in a temporary office at 1 Wall Street in New York City. He named his new enterprise ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’
Nathaniel continued as a job printer and duplicated everything from music sheets to architectural plans. He experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, and any thing that he could sell to the public from tables in front of his shop. During 1835 he produced a disaster print Ruins of the Planter's Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives. The public had a thirst for newsworthy events, and newspapers of the day did not include pictures. By producing this print, Nat gave the public a new way to “see” the news. The print sold reasonably well, an important fact that was not lost on Currier.
Nat met and married Eliza Farnsworth in 1840. He also produced a print that same year titled Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Evening, January 18, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence over One Hundred Persons Perished. This print sold out very quickly, and Currier was approached by an enterprising publication who contracted him to print a single sheet addition of their paper, the New York Sun. This single page paper is presumed to be the first illustrated newspaper ever published.
The success of the Lexington print launched his career nationally and put him in a position to finally lift his family up. In 1841, Nat and Eliza had their first child, a son they named Edward West Currier. That same year Nat hired his twenty-one year old brother Charles and taught him the lithography trade, he also hired his artistically inclined brother Lorenzo to travel out west and make sketches of the new frontier as material for future prints. Charles worked for the firm on and off over the years, and invented a new type of lithographic crayon which he patented and named the Crayola. Lorenzo continued selling sketches to Nat for the next few years.
In 1843, Nat and Eliza had a daughter, Eliza West Currier, but tragedy struck in early 1847 when their young daughter died from a prolonged illness. Nat and Eliza were grief stricken, and Eliza, driven by despair, gave up on life and passed away just four months after her daughter’s death.
The subject of Nat Currier’s artwork changed following the death of his wife and daughter, and he produced many memorial prints and sentimental prints during the late 1840s. The memorial prints generally depicted grief stricken families posed by gravestones (the stones were left blank so the purchasers could fill in the names of the dearly departed). The sentimental prints usually depicted idealized portraits of women and children, titled with popular Christian names of the day.
Late in 1847, Nat Currier married Lura Ormsbee, a friend of the family. Lura was a self-sufficient woman, and she immediately set out to help Nat raise six-year-old Edward and get their house in order. In 1849, Lura delivered a son, Walter Black Currier, but fate dealt them a blow when young Walter died one year later. While Nat and Lura were grieving the loss of their new son, word came from San Francisco that Nat’s brother Lorenzo had also passed away from a brief illness. Nat sank deeper into his natural quiet melancholy. Friends stopped by to console the couple, and Lura began to set an extra place at their table for these unexpected guests. She continued this tradition throughout their lives.
In 1852, Charles introduced a friend, James Merritt Ives, to Nat and suggested he hire him as a bookkeeper. Jim Ives was a native New Yorker born in 1824 and raised on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was employed as superintendent. Jim was a self-trained artist and professional bookkeeper. He was also a plump and jovial man, presenting the exact opposite image of his new boss.
Jim Ives met Charles Currier through Caroline Clark, the object of Jim’s affection. Caroline’s sister Elizabeth was married to Charles, and Caroline was a close friend of the Currier family. Jim eventually proposed marriage to Caroline and solicited an introduction to Nat Currier, through Charles, in hopes of securing a more stable income to support his future wife.
Ives quickly set out to improve and modernize his new employer’s bookkeeping methods. He reorganized the firm’s sizable inventory, and used his artistic skills to streamline the firm’s production methods. By 1857, Nathaniel had become so dependent on Jims’ skills and initiative that he offered him a full partnership in the firm and appointed him general manager. The two men chose the name ‘Currier & Ives’ for the new partnership, and became close friends.
Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders at work. The fifth floor housed the coloring department, and was one of the earliest production lines in the country. The colorists were generally immigrant girls, mostly German, who came to America with some formal artistic training. Each colorist was responsible for adding a single color to a print. As a colorist finished applying their color, the print was passed down the line to the next colorist to add their color. The colorists worked from a master print displayed above their table, which showed where the proper colors were to be placed. At the end of the table was a touch up artist who checked the prints for quality, touching-in areas that may have been missed as it passed down the line. During the Civil War, demand for prints became so great that coloring stencils were developed to speed up production.
Although most Currier & Ives prints were colored in house, some were sent out to contract artists. The rate Currier & Ives paid these artists for coloring work was one dollar per one hundred small folios (a penny a print) and one dollar per one dozen large folios. Currier & Ives also offered uncolored prints to dealers, with instructions (included on the price list) on how to 'prepare the prints for coloring.' In addition, schools could order uncolored prints from the firm’s catalogue to use in their painting classes.
Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives attracted a wide circle of friends during their years in business. Some of their more famous acquaintances included Horace Greeley, Phineas T. Barnum, and the outspoken abolitionists Rev. Henry Ward, and John Greenleaf Whittier (the latter being a cousin of Mr. Currier).
Nat Currier and Jim Ives described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" and produced many categories of prints. These included Disaster Scenes, Sentimental Images, Sports, Humor, Hunting Scenes, Politics, Religion, City and Rural Scenes, Trains, Ships, Fire Fighters, Famous Race Horses, Historical Portraits, and just about any other topic that satisfied the general public's taste. In all, the firm produced in excess of 7500 different titles, totaling over one million prints produced from 1835 to 1907.
Nat Currier retired in 1880, and signed over his share of the firm to his son Edward. Nat died eight years later at his summer home 'Lion’s Gate' in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Jim Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895, when his share of the firm passed to his eldest son, Chauncey.
In 1902, faced will failing health from the ravages of Tuberculosis, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives...
Category
Romantic Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Watercolor, Lithograph
Bataille de la Moskwa - Etching by Pierre François Tardieu - 1837
Located in Roma, IT
Bataille de la Moskwa is an Etching realized by Pierre François Tardieu in 1837.
It represents one of the most famous battles of Napoleon.
Good conditions.
The artwork is realized...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Hiroshige Utagawa, The Suruga District in Edo
Located in Torino, IT
HIROSHIGE UTAGAWA I, Edo 1797 - 1858
The Suruga District in Edo (Tôto Suruga-chô), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fuji sanjûrokkei)
Nishiki-e. Color woodcut, signed...
Category
Edo Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Woodcut
(after) John Constable mezzotint "Jacques and the Wounded Stag"
By David Lucas
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: mezzotint (engraved by David Lucas after the John Constable painting). Printed in 1855 on cream wove paper for the "English Landscape S...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Mezzotint
(after) John Constable mezzotint "Autumnal Sun Set"
By David Lucas
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: mezzotint (engraved by David Lucas after the John Constable painting). Printed in 1855 on cream wove paper for the "English Landscape S...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Mezzotint
"New York - Taken from the Northwest angle of Fort Columbus, Governor's Island"
Located in New York, NY
New York - Taken from the north west angle of Fort Columbus Governor's Island, 1846
Engraved by Henry Papprill after a sketch by F. Catherwood, published by Henry J. Megarey
Hand-colored engraving on paper
Image 16 x 26 1/2 inches
Henry A. Papprill (1816–1903) was a British engraver. Noted as an aquatint engraver from 1840. His plates were published from 1840 till 1883 mainly by Ackermann of the Strand.
Papprill was born in Holborn, London. Lived for much of his life at Wharton Street, Lloyd Square, London. Papprill is thought to have been based in New York City for brief period in the mid-1840s. His work in the USA appears to classify him as an American engraver but he was based and gained his reputation and bulk of his work in England.
He produced a series of works for Ackermann & Co from 1840 beginning with four plates called "The Jolly Squire", with verses, after James Pollard.
In the following years Papprill engraved a number of military plates for Ackermann as well a series of engravings of New York (1846-9) for H.I.Megarey (published in New York). The most notable of these are: "The North West Angle of Fort Columbus, Governor's Island" (the Catherwood-Papprill view) and New York from the Steeple of St. Paul's Church, Looking East, South & West." (The Hill-Papprill view) listed in the American Historical Prints - Early Views of American Cities, etc: I.N.Phelps Stokes & Daniel C. Haskell. New York Public Library 1932.
Papprill also produced for Ackermann a series of sporting prints after G. H. Laporte between 1860 and 1865. These were entitled: Racing, Hunting and Coursing. He also produced a series of shipping prints...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Paper, Engraving, Aquatint
19th century landscape etching farm field black and white figures pastoral scene
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Charles Francois Daubigny's etching from around 1865 is an example of the Barbizon painters' preoccupations. Entitled "Les Vendages," the work depicts peasants bringing in the harves...
Category
Barbizon School Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
The French Attack - Etching by Auguste Raffet - Late 19th century
Located in Roma, IT
The French attack is a Lithograph realized by Auguste Raffet in the 1860s.
Belongs to the series "Souvenir d'Italie - Expédition de Rome".
Signed on the plate.
Good condition
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
The French attack on Porta San Pancrazio by Auguste Raffet - Late 19th century
Located in Roma, IT
The French attack on Porta San Pancrazio is a Lithograph realized by Auguste Raffet in the 1860s.
Belongs to the series "Souvenir d'Italie - Expédition de Rome".
Signed on the plat...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
New South Wales, Australia, antique mid 19th century engraved John Tallis map
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
'New South Wales'
With decorative border surrounds and vignettes of 'Sydney Cove'. 'The Murray' and 'Xanthorrhea'.
'Drawn and engraved by J Rapkin'. Published by John Tallis.
375m...
Category
Victorian Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Engraving
Set of Two Mezzotint Engravings from Constable's "English Landscape Scenery"
By John Constable
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: (after) John Constable (English, 1776-1837)
Title: "Noon" (Plate 36) and "A Lock on the Stour, Suffolk" (Plate 18)
Portfolio: English Landscape Scenery: A Series of Forty Mez...
Category
Victorian Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Engraving, Mezzotint
Baie de Kerloche - Etching by Auguste Feyen Perrin - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Baie de Kerloche is a black and White etching realized by Auguste Feyen Perrin in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 23x32.
Very good impression with wide margins and a ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
LE PONT AU CHANGE
Located in Portland, ME
Meryon, Charles. LE PONT AU CHANGE. S.40(v), DW.34. Etching with drypoint, 1854. Fifth State of twelve, with the inscriptions in cursive, "C. Meryon del. sculp. mdcccliiii," lower l...
Category
Realist Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Drypoint, Etching
Peche a la Sardine - Etching by Pierre-Émile Berthélemy - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Peche a la Sardine is a black and White etching realized by Pierre-Émile Berthélemy in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 12 x 18, 12 x 18.
Very good impression with wid...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Vue Prise aux Iles Borromees - Etching by Giberto Borromeo - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Vue Prise aux Iles Borromees is a black and White etching realized by Giberto Borromeo in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 23x32.
Very good impression with wide margin...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Bacchante Ivre - Etching by Jules Chevrier - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Bacchante Ivre is a black and White etching realized by Jules Chevrier in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 32x23.
Very good impression with wide margins and a very fre...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Truands de Campagne - Etching by Jules Laurens - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Truands de Campagne is a black and White etching realized by Jules Laurens in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 31x23.
Very good impression with wide margins and a very...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Canards et Poules - Etching by Francisco Gimenez - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Canards et Poules is a black and White etching realized by Francisco Gimenez in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 32x13.
Very good impression with wide margins and a ve...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
La. Benediction de l'Aieul - Etching by Edouard Moyse - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
La. Benediction de l'Aieul is a black and White etching realized by Edouard Moyse in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size:23x31.
Very good impression with wide margins and ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Moulins dans le pas de Calais - Etching by A. Sogé - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Moulins dans le pas de Calais is a black and White etching realized by A. Sogé in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 23x31.
Very good impression with wide margins and a ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
La Lettre - Etching by Smits - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
La Lettre is a black and White etching realized by Smits in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 31x23.
Very good impression with wide margins and a very fresh inking.
Re...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Lillebonne en 1848 - Etching by George Snell - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
Lillebonne en 1848 is a black and White etching realized by George Snell in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 25x37.
Very good impression with wide margins and a very f...
Category
Impressionist Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
La Peche - Etching by Charles-André Malardot - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
La Peche is a black and White etching realized by Charles-André Malardot in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 25x17.
Very good impression with wide margins and a very f...
Category
Impressionist Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
La Priere - Etching by Jacques-Joseph Lecurieux - 1860s
Located in Roma, IT
La Priere is a black and White etching realized by Jacques-Joseph Lecurieux in the 1860s.
Titled in the lower.
Image size: 31x23.
Very good impression with wide margins and a ver...
Category
Impressionist Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Rue St. Nicolas a Blois - Etching by Emile Louis Vernier - 1863
Located in Roma, IT
Rue St. Nicolas a Blois is a black and White etching realized by Emile Louis Vernier in 1863
Titled in the lower
Image Size: 31x23
Very good impression.
Realized for the "Sociét...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
19th century color lithograph seascape boat ship waves maritime landscape
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Iron Steam Ship Great Britain" is an original hand-colored lithographed published by Currier & Ives. It depicts a large British steam ship on the water. The caption below says "3500 Tons. Engine 1000 Horse power. Weight of Iron used in the Ship and Engine is 1500 Tons. THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD. Length from Figurehead to Tafrail 322 Fe3et. Main breadth 50' 6" ... Depth 32' 6" Lieut. Jaf. Hosken R.N. Commander."
8" x 12 3/4" art
17 1/8" x 21 1/2" frame
Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone...
Category
Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
La Rentrée des Bateaux des Pêcheurs - Etching by Lèon Gaucherel - 19th Century
Located in Roma, IT
La Rentrée des Bateaux des Pêcheurs is an artwork realized by Léon Gaucherel in the 19th Century .
Etching.
Signed on Plate.
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Athens Temple of Bacchus - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Ancient Ruins is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the go...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
19th century color lithograph nature figure winter scene trees snow river
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Deer Shooting in the Northern Woods" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives. It depicts a landscape with a hunter aiming his gun at a deer on a winter day.
10" x 14" art
19 1/2" x 23 1/4" frame
Nathaniel Currier was a tall introspective man with a melancholy nature. He could captivate people with his piercing stare or charm them with his sparkling blue eyes. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27th, 1813, the second of four children. His parents, Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, were distant cousins who lived a humble yet spartan life. When Nathaniel was eight years old, tragedy struck. Nathaniel’s father unexpectedly passed away leaving Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old brother Lorenzo to provide for the family. In addition to their mother, Nathaniel and Lorenzo had to care for six-year-old sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles. Nathaniel worked a series of odd jobs to support the family, and at fifteen, he started what would become a life-long career when he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton.
A Bavarian gentleman named Alois Senefelder invented lithography just 30 years prior to young Nat Currier’s apprenticeship. While under the employ of the brothers Pendleton, Nat was taught the art of lithography by the firm’s chief printer, a French national named Dubois, who brought the lithography trade to America.
Lithography involves grinding a piece of limestone flat and smooth then drawing in mirror image on the stone with a special grease pencil. After the image is completed, the stone is etched with a solution of aqua fortis leaving the greased areas in slight relief. Water is then used to wet the stone and greased-ink is rolled onto the raised areas. Since grease and water do not mix, the greased-ink is repelled by the moisture on the stone and clings to the original grease pencil lines. The stone is then placed in a press and used as a printing block to impart black on white images to paper.
In 1833, now twenty-years old and an accomplished lithographer, Nat Currier left Boston and moved to Philadelphia to do contract work for M.E.D. Brown, a noted engraver and printer. With the promise of good money, Currier hired on to help Brown prepare lithographic stones of scientific images for the American Journal of Sciences and Arts. When Nat completed the contract work in 1834, he traveled to New York City to work once again for his mentor John Pendleton, who was now operating his own shop located at 137 Broadway. Soon after the reunion, Pendleton expressed an interest in returning to Boston and offered to sell his print shop to Currier. Young Nat did not have the financial resources to buy the shop, but being the resourceful type he found another local printer by the name of Stodart. Together they bought Pendleton’s business.
The firm ‘Currier & Stodart’ specialized in "job" printing. They produced many different types of printed items, most notably music manuscripts for local publishers. By 1835, Stodart was frustrated that the business was not making enough money and he ended the partnership, taking his investment with him. With little more than some lithographic stones, and a talent for his trade, twenty-two year old Nat Currier set up shop in a temporary office at 1 Wall Street in New York City. He named his new enterprise ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’
Nathaniel continued as a job printer and duplicated everything from music sheets to architectural plans. He experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, and any thing that he could sell to the public from tables in front of his shop. During 1835 he produced a disaster print Ruins of the Planter's Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives. The public had a thirst for newsworthy events, and newspapers of the day did not include pictures. By producing this print, Nat gave the public a new way to “see” the news. The print sold reasonably well, an important fact that was not lost on Currier.
Nat met and married Eliza Farnsworth in 1840. He also produced a print that same year titled Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Evening, January 18, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence over One Hundred Persons Perished. This print sold out very quickly, and Currier was approached by an enterprising publication who contracted him to print a single sheet addition of their paper, the New York Sun. This single page paper is presumed to be the first illustrated newspaper ever published.
The success of the Lexington print launched his career nationally and put him in a position to finally lift his family up. In 1841, Nat and Eliza had their first child, a son they named Edward West Currier. That same year Nat hired his twenty-one year old brother Charles and taught him the lithography trade, he also hired his artistically inclined brother Lorenzo to travel out west and make sketches of the new frontier as material for future prints. Charles worked for the firm on and off over the years, and invented a new type of lithographic crayon which he patented and named the Crayola. Lorenzo continued selling sketches to Nat for the next few years.
In 1843, Nat and Eliza had a daughter, Eliza West Currier, but tragedy struck in early 1847 when their young daughter died from a prolonged illness. Nat and Eliza were grief stricken, and Eliza, driven by despair, gave up on life and passed away just four months after her daughter’s death.
The subject of Nat Currier’s artwork changed following the death of his wife and daughter, and he produced many memorial prints and sentimental prints during the late 1840s. The memorial prints generally depicted grief stricken families posed by gravestones (the stones were left blank so the purchasers could fill in the names of the dearly departed). The sentimental prints usually depicted idealized portraits of women and children, titled with popular Christian names of the day.
Late in 1847, Nat Currier married Lura Ormsbee, a friend of the family. Lura was a self-sufficient woman, and she immediately set out to help Nat raise six-year-old Edward and get their house in order. In 1849, Lura delivered a son, Walter Black Currier, but fate dealt them a blow when young Walter died one year later. While Nat and Lura were grieving the loss of their new son, word came from San Francisco that Nat’s brother Lorenzo had also passed away from a brief illness. Nat sank deeper into his natural quiet melancholy. Friends stopped by to console the couple, and Lura began to set an extra place at their table for these unexpected guests. She continued this tradition throughout their lives.
In 1852, Charles introduced a friend, James Merritt Ives, to Nat and suggested he hire him as a bookkeeper. Jim Ives was a native New Yorker born in 1824 and raised on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was employed as superintendent. Jim was a self-trained artist and professional bookkeeper. He was also a plump and jovial man, presenting the exact opposite image of his new boss.
Jim Ives met Charles Currier through Caroline Clark, the object of Jim’s affection. Caroline’s sister Elizabeth was married to Charles, and Caroline was a close friend of the Currier family. Jim eventually proposed marriage to Caroline and solicited an introduction to Nat Currier, through Charles, in hopes of securing a more stable income to support his future wife.
Ives quickly set out to improve and modernize his new employer’s bookkeeping methods. He reorganized the firm’s sizable inventory, and used his artistic skills to streamline the firm’s production methods. By 1857, Nathaniel had become so dependent on Jims’ skills and initiative that he offered him a full partnership in the firm and appointed him general manager. The two men chose the name ‘Currier & Ives’ for the new partnership, and became close friends.
Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders at work. The fifth floor housed the coloring department, and was one of the earliest production lines in the country. The colorists were generally immigrant girls, mostly German, who came to America with some formal artistic training. Each colorist was responsible for adding a single color to a print. As a colorist finished applying their color, the print was passed down the line to the next colorist to add their color. The colorists worked from a master print displayed above their table, which showed where the proper colors were to be placed. At the end of the table was a touch up artist who checked the prints for quality, touching-in areas that may have been missed as it passed down the line. During the Civil War, demand for prints became so great that coloring stencils were developed to speed up production.
Although most Currier & Ives prints were colored in house, some were sent out to contract artists. The rate Currier & Ives paid these artists for coloring work was one dollar per one hundred small folios (a penny a print) and one dollar per one dozen large folios. Currier & Ives also offered uncolored prints to dealers, with instructions (included on the price list) on how to 'prepare the prints for coloring.' In addition, schools could order uncolored prints from the firm’s catalogue to use in their painting classes.
Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives attracted a wide circle of friends during their years in business. Some of their more famous acquaintances included Horace Greeley, Phineas T. Barnum, and the outspoken abolitionists Rev. Henry Ward, and John Greenleaf Whittier (the latter being a cousin of Mr. Currier).
Nat Currier and Jim Ives described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" and produced many categories of prints. These included Disaster Scenes, Sentimental Images, Sports, Humor, Hunting Scenes, Politics, Religion, City and Rural Scenes, Trains, Ships, Fire Fighters, Famous Race Horses, Historical Portraits, and just about any other topic that satisfied the general public's taste. In all, the firm produced in excess of 7500 different titles, totaling over one million prints produced from 1835 to 1907.
Nat Currier retired in 1880, and signed over his share of the firm to his son Edward. Nat died eight years later at his summer home 'Lion’s Gate' in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Jim Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895, when his share of the firm passed to his eldest son, Chauncey.
In 1902, faced will failing health from the ravages of Tuberculosis, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives. In 1907, faced with competitive pressures from advancements in offset printing and photo engraving, Chauncey closed the venerable lithography business and sold the printing equipment and lithographic stones to his shop foreman, Daniel W. Logan.
Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives are laid to rest along with their families at the Greenwood Cemetery...
Category
Other Art Style Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Julia Basilica and Tabularium - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Julia Basilica and Tabularium is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " H...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Jainite temple in Gwalior - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Jainite temple in Gwalior is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " Histo...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Colonnade of the File Islands - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Colonnade of the File Islands is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " H...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Rovine della Minerva Medica - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Rovine della Minerva Medica is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " His...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Ruins of the Temple of Cybele in Sardis - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Ruins of the Temple of Cybele in Sardis is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the uni...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Arch of Augustus - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Arch of Augustus is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Porta Palatino in Turin - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Porta Palatino in Turin is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Example of Doric Proportion - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Example of Doric Proportion is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the governm...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Houses of Madagadassi - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Houses of Madagadassi is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the government, o...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Style of Dressing from Madagadassi - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Style of Dressing from Madagadassi is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Buda and Pest - Landscape - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Buda and Pest - Landscape is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the governmen...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
The Leaflet of the Italian Risorgimento - Lithograph - 1850s
Located in Roma, IT
The Leaflet of the Italian Risorgimento is an original Propaganda leaflet realized in the 1850s.
Good conditions with slight foxing.
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Propylaea - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Propylaea is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the government, of the laws, ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Figure of the Bread which They use in the Eucharist - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Figure of the Bread which they use in the Eucharist is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: ...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Athens Market - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Ladies of the Islands of Tina is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the gover...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Ladies of the Islands of Tina - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Ladies of the Islands of Tina is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the gover...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Dance called the Candiotta - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Dance called the Candiotta is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the governme...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Costume of the Greeks - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Costume of the Greeks is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the government, o...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Cologeri's Robes - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Cologeri's Robes is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the government, of the...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Robes of the Greek Empresses - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Robes of the Greek Empresses is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the govern...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Ducal Palace of Ferrara - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Ducal Palace of Ferrara is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the government,...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Madrid - Etching - 1850s
Located in Roma, IT
Madrid is an etching print on paper realized in the late 19th Century.
Titled on the plate
Good conditions with slight cutting and folding on margins.
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Etching
Uses and Customs - Tea Palace in Mantua - Lithograph - 1862
Located in Roma, IT
Uses and Customs - Tea Palace in Mantua is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862.
The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of...
Category
Modern Mid-19th Century Landscape Prints
Materials
Lithograph