Title: High Pressure Steamboat Mayflower. First Class Packet between St. Louis and New Orleans on the Mississippi River. Capt. Joseph Brown.
Artist: Charles Parsons (1821-1910)
Lithograph, handcolored, 1863.
New York, published by N. Currier, 152 Nassau Street.
Large folio - image size 16 3/16 x 28 1/16" (41.1 x 71.3 cm).

#2813 in "Currier & Ives Prints. An Illustrated Checklist" by Frederick Conningham.

Charles Parsons was an American watercolorist and lithographer. Born in Rowland's Castle, England, Parsons became an apprentice to George Endicott of Endicott & Co. as a teenager in New York. He learned the process of lithography through them and would create many wonderful images for both Endicott and Currier & Ives before being hired as an art direct for Harper's Weekly in 1863, a position he held until 1889. While best known for his handsome marine scenes, Parsons also produced railroad scenes and areal views of American towns and cities.

Currier & Ives was America's longest running printing establishment, publishing over seven-thousand images in a span of seventy-three years. The early history of Currier & Ives follows its founder, Nathaniel Currier, and the first lithographic house of America, William and John Pendleton of Boston. During the early years, Nathaniel Currier ran the firm more like a job press rather than a print publishing house. It was the financial success of their "Sinking of the Lexington" lithograph, published in the New York Sun, that ultimately changed the course of the company.

James Merritt Ives joined Currier as a bookkeeper in 1852. He quickly became an indispensable member of the firm and in 1857 was made a partner. The name of the company was subsequently changed from N. Currier to Currier & Ives.

The publishing house of Currier & Ives was so synonymous with American culture that Leroy Anderson mentioned it in his song "Sleigh Ride" published in 1948, several decades after the firm had closed.

Condition: Fair condition, professionally repaired tear in upper right 4" into color. Another professionally repaired tear in the left margin 3/8" into color. Backed on paper. Additions of later handcolor.