A Ride to School
1868–78 · Hand-colored lithograph · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The whole print, uncropped, on a printed cream mat with its title beneath.
Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
- Printed to order, arrives in 4–9 business days
- Arrives perfect or we reprint it, free
- Secure checkout with Stripe
- Questions? hello@madten.com
About this work
- Artist
- Currier & Ives (firm active 1857–1907 (Nathaniel Currier 1813–1888, James Merritt Ives 1824–1895))
- Year
- 1868–78
- Medium
- Hand-colored lithograph
- Original size
- 12.5 × 20.2 cm
- Collection
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Movement
- American Folk Art
A boy in a blue jacket and red scarf leans into a rope, pulling a sled through the snow with a small girl in an orange hood and a younger child on board. His books are strapped to his back. Behind them a wooden fence runs past a snow-roofed house, a church spire rises on the left, and small birds sit in the bare branches overhead. Currier & Ives, the New York print publishers, sold small hand-coloured lithographs like this one for a few cents each, to be pinned up or framed in ordinary homes. Scenes of country children at play and on their way to school were a steady part of the firm's list. The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates this print between 1868 and 1878. It is one of the Currier & Ives prints bequeathed to the museum by Adele S. Colgate in 1962.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Three children on a yellow sled in the snow, in blue, red, green and orange against grey winter trees. It suits a child's room, playroom or family hallway beside Homer's Snap the Whip, in a dark wood frame.
Size, framing & materials
- Style
- American Folk Art painting
- Era
- 19th century (1868–78)
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Mood
- dramatic, moody
- Rooms
- hallway or entryway, kids room, living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. Prints at 16×12, 24×18 in — 16×12 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 24×18 above a console or sideboard. See it to scale on your wall →
Framing. The gallery ground is part of the print, so frame it without a mat — dark wood flatters the lighter palette; black sharpens it.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
- Restored in-house from a scan of the original print, cleaned and colour-trued at museum resolution
- Museum-quality archival paper: heavyweight, acid-free, resists yellowing
- Framed option: wood frame in black or dark wood, 12 mm wide and 22 mm deep, with a plexiglass front and no mat; the print is mounted inside and the frame's outside measures the listed size
- Made to order; colours may vary slightly from screen
