Currier and Ives “General Grant and Family”

Currier and Ives.  “General Grant and Family.”  Currier & Ives, 1867.  Small folio.  8 1/8 x 12 1/4.  Lithograph.  Uncolored.  Minor staining in bottom margin.  Else, good condition.  C:2273.  

In 1834 Nathaniel Currier established the firm which produced colored pictures using a then relatively new process called lithography.  Some of the finest artists of the day, Louis Maurer, Thomas Worth, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, George H. Durrie, Charles Parsons, and J. E. Butterworth were engaged by the firm to produce a variety of images.  The prints were printed in black and white and then the finest colors, imported from Austria, were applied by hand by women.  Currier and Ives also made an important contribution to the political history of the United States through the publication of the broadsheet lithographic cartoon through which the people received a large part of their political knowledge.