The Farmer's Home--Autumn

In this rural scene, men, women and children harvest apples from an apple orchard at the lower left. In the central foreground, a horse-drawn wagon loaded with apples heads through a gate and up the drive to a large farmhouse in the central background. To the right of the house, two women pick grapes under an arbor.

Nathaniel Currier, who established a successful New York-based lithography firm in 1835, published thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with James Merritt Ives (1824–1895), the brother-in-law of Nathaniel's brother Charles. People eagerly acquired Currier & Ives lithographs, such as rural and city views, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. Although it was unusual for a woman to achieve such prominence in a printing firm, Frances Flora Palmer was one of the most important artists working for Nathaniel Currier, and later Currier and Ives, between 1849 and 1868, when she produced approximately 200 of the firm's best landscapes and most engaging scenes of daily life.