"Four-in-Hand"

Two light and two dark horses draw a closed coach to the ride through a landscape. Five men wearing top hats, and two ladies, are seated on the driver's seat, the roof, and a seat behind. A driver and the lady next to him are protected by a carriage robe.

The New York firm of Currier & Ives grew from a printing business established by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) in 1835. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with brother-in-law James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). The firm operated until 1907, lithographing over 4,000 subjects for distribution across America and Europe with popular categories including landscape, marines, natural history, genre, caricatures, portraits, history and foreign views. Until the 1880s, images were printed in monochrome, then hand-colored. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, as here, Currier & Ives began to print in color.

Credit: Bequest of Adele S. Colgate, 1962