Currier and Ives prints

Currier and Ives prints. Popular lithographs published in New York by Nathaniel Currier (1813–88) and James M. Ives (1824–95). Currier began issuing prints in 1834 and the name ‘Currier & Ives’ was first used in 1857, when Ives (the firm's bookkeeper) became a partner. They advertised their lithographs as ‘Coloured Engravings for the People’, and they represented almost every aspect of contemporary America, including sporting, sentimental, patriotic, and political subjects, together with portraits, landscapes, disasters, scenes of city life, railroads, Mississippi steamboats, and so forth. A number of artists, most of whom specialized in particular subjects, were retained by the firm to draw the lithographs in black and white; afterwards the prints were coloured by hand on a production-line system (one assistant to each colour) and sold cheaply to the public by agents, printsellers, and pedlars. The business was carried on until 1907 by the sons of the founders.