David Barnett Gallery Art

This mask, created by an unknown Indonesian artist, features dark sin, gold and red eyes, teeth, and hair. It is approximately 7" tall by 5 1/2" wide.

"Stag Beetle & Longicorn Beetle" is an original color lithograph by Louis Prang. It depicts two forest-dwelling beetles. The artist signed the piece in the stone lower left. It was published by Selmar Hess in New York. 8" x 5" art 19 3/8" x 16" framed Louis Prang (March 12, 1824 – September 14, 1909) was an American printer, lithographer, publisher, and Georgist. He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card". Prang's early activities in the US publishing architectural books and making leather goods were not very successful, and he began to make wood engravings for illustrations in books. In 1851 he worked for Frank Leslie, art director for Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, and later with John Andrew. In 1851, he married Rosa Gerber, a Swiss woman he had met in Paris in 1846. In 1856, Prang and a partner created a firm, Prang and Mayer, to produce lithographs. The company specialized in prints of buildings...

This wooden sculpture of a peacock-like bird (Garuda) was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. The beak is missing. The sculpture is 7 1/2" x 4 1/2". The Garuda is a legendary bird or bird-like creature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology. He is variously the vehicle mount (vahana) of the Hindu god Vishnu, a dharma-protector and Astasena in Buddhism, and the Yaksha of the Jain Tirthankara...

This Garuda finial was created by an unknown Indonesian artist out of wood. A finial or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. The sculpture is 11" x 4". The Garuda is a legendary bird or bird-like creature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology. He is variously the vehicle mount (vahana) of the Hindu god Vishnu, a dharma-protector and Astasena in Buddhism, and the Yaksha of the Jain Tirthankara...

This mask was made by an unknown Indonesian sculpture. It is carved out of wood and covered in gold leaf. It features an abstracted face and is 7" tall by 5 1/2" wide.

This wooden finial figure was carved from wood by an unknown Indonesian artist. This figure stands on a carved decorative base, also created in Indonesia. The sculpture is a red and ...

This Garuda finial was created by an unknown Indonesian artist out of wood. A finial or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. The sculpture is 10 1/2" x 5". The Garuda is a legendary bird or bird-like creature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology. He is variously the vehicle mount (vahana) of the Hindu god Vishnu, a dharma-protector and Astasena in Buddhism, and the Yaksha of the Jain Tirthankara...

These two figures were created by an unknown Indonesian artist using carved, painted wood. The bride and groom figures were to be used at a traditional wedding in Indonesia. The Loro Blonyo...

"Cite Lacustre" is an Estampe Originale en coleurs by Fernand Cormon. The artist created this work for the art nouveau publication L'Estampe Moderne in 1897. The L'Estampe Moderne bl...

"The Celebrated Clipper Ship Dreadnought" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives. It depicts a sailing ship. 13 1/4" x 17 1/2" art 19" x 23 1/2" 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...

"Italian Piazza" is an original watercolor painting attributed to Gabrielli Carelli, an Italian artist. This piece is from the Rothschild Collection...

This sculpture was created out of cothe stone to represent the king of the N'Tadi tribe in Zaire. This tribe is now called Pende. The sculpture stands 15 1/2" x 6" x 5 1/2". The Pe...

"Projet D'Assiette" is an original zincographie print by Paul Gauguin. It is from the first edition of 50, created in 1889. 18 7/8" x 13" art 24 3/4" x 21" framed Paul Gauguin (1...

"Lady Mary Stanhope" is an original pencil and pastel drawing by Constance de Rothschild. This piece depicts a woman facing to the right. The artist also cre...

"The New Steamship Cephalonia, of the Cunard Line" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives. It depicts a large sailing steamship. There is a significant stain in the artwork in the upper center. 12" x 16 3/4" art 21" x 26" 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...

"Northern Hare" is an original color lithograph by John James Audubon. This piece depicts a white rabbit in a cool green landscape. 5 3/4" x 7 3/4" art...

"Worm-Wood Hare" is an original color lithograph by John James Audubon. It depicts three brown rabbits in a landscape. No. 18, Plate LXXXVIII, On Stone by W.E. Hitchcock. 6" x 8" ar...

"Battle of Monmouth June 28, 1778" is an original lithograph by Kurz & Allison. It depicts a battle in the American Revolutionary War. 12 1/4" x 18" art 21 1/4" x 27" frame Kurz &...

"John Paul Jones Captures the Countess & Serapis, Sept. 23, 1779" is an original lithograph by Kurz & Allison. It depicts a Revolutionary War navy commander i...

This wooden figure was created by an unknown Indonesian artist and features a dark-skinned man with a mustache and a distended stomach. It is appro...

This wood mask, featuring pink skin and round eyes, was made by an unknown Indonesian artist. This piece is 7 1/2" tall by 4 1/2" wide.

"Shooting on the Prairie" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives. It depicts a hunter shooting at fowl in an open field. 8 1/2" x 12 1/2" art 20 1/4" x 23 3/4" 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...

"Le Passant" is an original Art Nouveau color lithograph. It depicts two women in the foreground wearing medieval white robes and a knight passing behind them on a black horse. Features the L'Estampe Moderne blindstamp bottom right hand corner. 1898. 15 3/4" x 12" art 23" x 19 1/4" framed Robert Engels studied in Dusseldorf and moved shortly thereafter to work in Munich. Later, he became a professor at a school of applied arts at the KGS in Munich. He created many decorative prints as well as stained glass windows and also created compositions to illustrate Joseph Bedier's rendition of "Tristan and Iseult...

This mask, featuring a pink face, moustache, and slanted eyes, was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. It is approximately 8" high by 5" wide.

This mask, created by an unknown Indonesian artist, features a bright salmon-colored face with heavily slanted eyes. It also has a mustache made of animal fur. It is approximately 7"...

This mask, created by an unknown Indonesian artist, features round eyes, painted fangs, and a blood red face. It is approximately 7 1/4" tall by 5 3/4" wide.

This half-mask features curly hair, large eyes, a "pug nose" and two buck teeth. It was created by an unknown Indonesian artist and is approximately 6" high by 6" wide.

This mask, created by an unknown Indonesian artist, features round eyes, a white face, and a painted mustache. It is approximately 7" tall and 5 1/2" wide.

"Viviane, Maindron" is an original color lithograph by Jules Cheret. It is an advertisement for a five-act ballet from 1886. It depicts a performer in a yellow dress with other dance...

"Rappel" is an original lithograph poster designed by Jules Cheret. This poster depicts a young man drumming. There is a small stain in the upper left corner. This poster was publish...

This mask, which features a face with round eyes, fangs, and a beet red face, was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. It is approximately 7 1/2" high and...

"Graine d'Horizontales" is an original black and white lithograph by Jules Cheret. It depicts a woman with an animal on her left next to a page of everyday people. 8" x 11 1/2" ima...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. This shadow puppet, 16" high and 5" wide with movable, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. This shadow puppet, 26" high with movable arms, was used in Indonesian Wayang Klitik...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. This shadow puppet, 20" high and 8" wide with movable, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art found in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, wherein a dramatic story is told through shadows thrown by puppets and sometimes combined with human characters. The art form celebrates the Indonesian culture and artistic talent; its origins are traced to the spread of Hinduism in the medieval era and the arrival of leather-based puppet arts called Tholu bommalata from southern India. Wayang refers to the entire dramatic show. Sometimes the leather puppet...

"H. L'Illusion (L'Estampe Moderne I)" is an original color lithograph by Henri Bellery-Desfontaines. This piece depicts a nude child before a dream-like woman in a blue translucent robe. This piece was published in the French Art Nouveau publication L'Estampe Moderne. Signed in plate. 15 3/4" x 12" art Henri Bellery-Desfontaines , born with Paris in 1867 and dead the October 6th 1909, is a French Noveau artist Jack-of-All- Trades, who produced tables, illustrations, posters, lithographies, drawings of carpet, pieces of furniture and banknotes, and even dabbled with decoration & architecture. In the 1900s, Paris was the perfect place for a group of young artists influenced by artistic currents like neogothic style or symbolism. Most of them started as painters and they switched later to decorative arts, attracted by the idea of an ever-present art, a lifeless art, a total art. Henri Bellery-Desfontaines was a member of this group and he started as as painter in Pierre-Victor Galland’s atelier. He entrusted him the decorative motifs which would frame Panthéon de Paris' drawings: Maillot, Bonnat, Humbert and specially Jean-Paul Laurens, who proposed him to join his atelier in l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. With him, he decorated l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris or Le Salon Lobau, Henri Bellery-Desfontaines is thought to have Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) as a teacher. During his years as a student, he started to illustrate magazines and books of tales and in 1895, Bellery-Desfontaines opted rapidly for illustration, probably due to financial problems, and he participated in magazines such as L’Image, L’Estampe Moderne or L’Almanach des Bibliophiles. This year, the Salon des Artistes Français hosted one of his design of tapestry. From 1900 on, he gradually evolved toward an ambitious decorative artist, making tapestries and furniture for rich leaders and patrons. Bellery-Desfontaines was an important artist of his epoch, and he took part in numerous events like Bal de...

"The Urchin (Le Gamin)" is an original etching by Edouard Manet. It depicts a young boy holding a basket with his long-haired dog. This is the second and fina...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist using water buffalo hide. This shadow puppet, 17" high with movable arms, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art found in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, wherein a dramatic story is told through shadows thrown by puppets and sometimes combined with human characters. The art form celebrates the Indonesian culture and artistic talent; its origins are traced to the spread of Hinduism in the medieval era and the arrival of leather-based puppet arts called Tholu bommalata from southern India. Wayang refers to the entire dramatic show. Sometimes the leather puppet...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist using water buffalo hide. This shadow puppet, 18" high with movable arms, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist using water buffalo hide. This shadow puppet, 14" high with movable arms, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. This puppet is an archer. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist using water buffalo hide. This shadow puppet, 17 1/2" high with movable arms, was use...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist using water buffalo hide. This shadow puppet, 18 1/2" high with movable arms, was use...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. This shadow puppet, 19" high, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Krama Javanese: Ringgit ꦫꦶꦁꦒꦶꦠ꧀, "Shadow"), also known as Wajang, is a form of puppet theatre art found in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, wherein a dramatic story is told through shadows thrown by puppets and sometimes combined with human characters. The art form celebrates the Indonesian culture and artistic talent; its origins are traced to the spread of Hinduism in the medieval era and the arrival of leather-based puppet arts called Tholu bommalata from southern India. Wayang refers to the entire dramatic show. Sometimes the leather puppet...

In 1897, Alphonse Mucha created illustrations for "Ilsee, Princesse de Tripoli." This double-sided print is a rare proof of an original color lithograph before any text from the story was added. This is a special edition print from edition 252 and is 12/35 on Chinese paper. 4.25" x 5.0625" image 20.75" x 17.5" frame Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in what is now the Czech Republic. His career began in decorative painting for theater scenery...

"Philadelphia Sunday Press" is an original figurative lithograph poster of black and red. 1895. 21.75" x 15.3125" art 28.5" x 22.75" framed George Brill was born August 27, 1867 in...

This flat shadow puppet was created by an unknown Indonesian artist. This shadow puppet, 32" high and 9" wide with movable, was used in Indonesian Wayang puppet shows. Wayang (Kram...

"Weaver Birds" is an original color lithograph by Louis Prang. It depicts multiple weaver birds with leaves surrounding them. 8 1/4" x 5" image 12 1/2" x...

"Resplendent Trogon" is an original color lithograph by Louis Prang. It depicts two large trogon birds in a lush jungle with various flora and fauna surroundin...

"SEESAW--Gloucester, Massachusetts" is an original wood engraving after Winslow Homer. The artist initialed the piece in the lower right. This print depicts six children on a seesaw ...

"Le Dejeuner" is a rare original color lithograph by Edouard Vuillard. It depicts a finely dressed woman with more less distinguishable figures in the background. This print was exec...

"Kacia" is an original color lithograph by Eugene Delatre. The artist signed and dated the piece in the lower left corner. It features a young girl in a...

"The Rag Gatherers" is an original etching on zinc plate by J. A. M. Whistler. The artist signed and dated the piece in the plate. It features a scene...

"Les Petits Japonais" is an original color lithograph by Jules Cheret. It depicts three young Japanese children in red, yellow, and blue. This piece is a design for the cover of "Les...

"Invocation" is an original lithograph with the blindstamp of L'Estampe Moderne in the bottom right corner. L'Estampe Moderne commissioned Marcel Lenoir ...

"From: Ilsée, Princess of Tripoli Recto: "Princess and Djeldah" Verso: "Fruit" is an original color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha. Exquisite double-sided color lithographs from "Ilse...

"From: Ilsée, Princess of Tripoli Recto: "Vision of Jaufre" Verso: "Love's Dream" is an original color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha. Exquisite double-sided color lithographs from "I...

"From: Ilsée, Princesse de Tripoli Recto: "Blaye Castle" Verso: "Reflecting Pool" is an original color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha. Exquisite double-s...

"From: Ilsée, Princesse de Tripoli Recto: "A Vision" Verso: "Worried Souls" is an original color lithograph by Alphonse Mucha. Exquisite double-sided color lithographs from "Ilsee, ...

"The Vagabond" is an original watercolor painting on paper signed in the lower left corner in red with 5/89 by the artist W. Forester. It depicts a large ship on a turbulent sea. 2...

"Rhinoceros" is an original color chromolithograph by Louis Prang. It depicts two rhinos in a lush jungle forest. 7 1/2" x 5" art 12 1/2" x 9 1/4" paper 18 3/8" x 15 1/2" frame Lo...