Visualizing 19th-Century New York Digital Publication

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Fred Parsells & Bro’s Catalogue of Cheap Colored Pictures—New York, 18[64].

Currier & Ives catalogue

1864

Bound booklet

19 5/8 × 25 5/8 in. (50 × 65 cm)

Courtesy American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, BDSDS. 1864 F

Collectors and the public today value most highly Currier & Ives as the producer of wonderful city views or nostalgic country scenes. However, this nineteenth century advertisement of a firm that sold mostly Currier & Ives (if unnamed) inventory, suggests that the bulk of their stock consisted of colorful lithographs of cute children, “beautiful girls,” energetic sporting horses, and—in the midst of the Civil War—a large offering of stylized “Pictures of Famous Battles.”

— David Jaffee