Popular lithographs by such firms as Currier & Ives and their contemporaries.
Genre images by important American artists of the 18th and 19th centuries.

"Protector Engine No. 2." Hartford: Kelloggs & Comstock and Buffalo: D. Needham, 1848-50. Lithograph. Original hand color. 8 5/8 x 12. Short, repaired tear in title area. Otherwise, very good condition.

A wonderful American fireman lithograph by the chief competitor to Currier & Ives, Kelloggs & Comstock. The image shows the pump engine in the background with four uniformed firemen, holding various tools, shown in the foreground. The neat residences in the background are a reminder of what it is that these obviously capable men were protecting. $575
Go to page on fire and fire fighting

Eadweard Muybridge. Plate 609: Trotting, sulky, Katydid. From Animal Locomotion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1887. Collotype. Approx. 19 1/8 x 24 1/8 (paper size), 13 1/2 x 19 5/8 (image size). Pencil inscriptions. Professionally conserved. Very good condition. Ref.: Frizot, p. 247

Eadweard Muybridge (1830- 1904) is widely considered to be one of the most influential photographers in the study of motion. The English born Muybridge traveled to California around 1852. His early romantic views of the west gained him enough acclaim to be appointed the Director of Photographic Surveys for the United States government. Because the capturing of these grand western vistas required Muybridge to use huge glass collodion-treated plates, he was approached by ex-California governor Leland Stanford to photograph his beloved horse. The principal purpose was to settle a wager based on the positioning of a horse's legs in the action of trotting, the question being whether all four hooves came off the ground at the same time. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Muybridge managed to set up a battery of cameras enabling him to record split second movements. His continuing work with animals and models in motion eventually led to his invention of the "zoopraxiscope," a moving picture machine that showed a rapid succession of images. Throughout the 1880s Muybridge lectured in America and abroad. With the help of Thomas Eakins, he found sponsors at the University of Pennsylvania and there Muybridge continued his work, taking thousands of locomotion studies of men, women, children, animals and birds. The results were published in a epic portfolio of 781 folio prints after his photographs, Animal Locomotion. Muybridge's motion studies are considered to be a critical step in the evolution of photography to motion pictures. $1,400
Go to page with more prints from Muybridge's Animal Locomotion.

"American Winter Scene." Philadelphia: Joseph Hoover, 1867. 18 1/2 x 26. Lithograph with original hand color. A few minor blemishes, but overall very good condition.

Joseph Hoover started by his career making elaborate wood frames in Philadelphia in 1856, but within a decade or so he began to produce popular prints. Initially he mostly worked for other publishers, including Duval & Hunter, but he also issued a number of hand-colored, popular prints. During the Centennial, Hoover won a medal for excellence for his chromolithographs after Queen's renderings, and in the 1880s, he and his sons began to print chromolithographs exclusively, with an average annual production of between 600,000 to 700,000 pictures. His earlier hand-colored prints have considerable charm, as evidenced by the lovely "American Winter Scene." Men in sleds race by a tidy home, whose inhabitants gaze out at the seen. In the middle distance a crowd of well dressed men, women and child enjoy skating on a frozen pond. The print includes interesting details such as the harnesses on the horses and painted window shades in the house. $1,600

“Winter Scene in the Country.” Philadelphia: Joseph Hoover, 1868. 18 x 25 1/2. Lithographed by P.S. Duval, Son & Co. Lithograph with original hand color. Excellent condition.

Joseph Hoover started by his career making elaborate wood frames in Philadelphia in 1856, but within a decade or so he began to produce popular prints. Initially he mostly worked for other publishers, including Duval & Hunter, but he also issued a number of hand-colored, popular prints. During the Centennial, Hoover won a medal for excellence for his chromolithographs after Queen’s renderings, and in the 1880s, he and his sons began to print chromolithographs exclusively, with an average annual production of between 600,000 to 700,000 pictures. His earlier hand-colored prints have considerable charm, as evidenced by this lovely “Winter Scene in the Country.” Sleighs race by a tidy home with many children playing in the yard. The trim on the house is of Eastlake design. In the middle distance a crowd enjoys skating on a frozen pond and sleighing down a hill. The print includes interesting background details such as a school and church steeple as part of a village with its well built bridge. A lovely piece of Americana. $1,800

Thomas Hicks. "Authors of the United States." New York: Thomas Hicks, 1866. Engraving by A.H. Ritchie. 19 3/8 x 34 1/2. Good margins. Very good condition.

A superior engraving of the most famous American authors of the middle of the nineteenth century. The image was drawn and published by Thomas Hicks, a native of Bucks County who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy and National Academy of Design. Around mid-century Hicks set up a studio as a portrait painter in New York City and many prominent persons of the age sat for him. This print is really a set piece showing off Hicks' portraits. It shows authors of the United States sitting and standing in a classical setting complete with statues of famous English writers including Shakespeare and Chaucer. Statues on the upper balcony are of the founders of modern vernacular literate: Goethe, Shakespeare, and Dante. Each is clearly and accurately rendered and the whole makes a most impressive image. This engraving was by A.H. Ritchie, one of the best historic print engravers of the mid-nineteenth century. Ritchie is well known for the clarity and richness of his engravings, and this is a fine example of his work. $950

Thomas Nast. "A Christmas-Box." December 26, 1885.

Harper’s Weekly, a newspaper in the last half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, presented a mixture of news stories, gossip, poetry, and most notably, wood-engraved illustrations. Amongst the most famous of the illustrators who worked for the magazine was Thomas Nast, ‘father of American political cartooning.’ During the second half of the nineteenth century, Nast became the most significant illustrator of American political and social issues. His pointed cartoons exerted a great impact on public opinion. More than a mere cartoonist, Nast was an innovator of images, popularizing or instituting many now familiar subjects such as the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, John Bull, Uncle Sam, and Columbia. Perhaps his most lasting creation was the image of Santa Claus, that he modeled from Clement Moore’s St. Nick in his Visit from Saint Nicholas and which serves as our present day jolly elf. $575
Go to page of Thomas Nast's Christmas theme prints.

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