A Great Fair on a Grand Scale

This representation of a country fair shows a race track at left, with trotters racing past the grandstand and viewers crowded into a building at left crowned with a large American flag. In the foreground, men lead white and brown horses as another inspects jumbo vegetables. In the middle ground spectators cluster around groups of sheep, pigs, cattle and horses. In background, a hot air balloon floats above a fountain.

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 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 by women who worked for the company at home. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, Currier & Ives began to print in color, as here.

Adele S. Colgate, a Colgate Palmolive heir who formed an important collection of Currier & Ives prints, gave this work to the Museum.