[Currier & Ives]: [After Palmer, Frances Flora Bond]:

$12,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

"HIGH WATER" IN THE MISSISSIPPI. An excellent Currier & Ives Mississippi River scene created just a few years after the Civil War, after an original illustration by the important and prolific artist, Frances Palmer. Though ostensibly presented as a nostalgic representation of the South, a modern interpretation might conclude that it demonstrates a new sense of freedom and independence felt by formerly enslaved people in the first few years of Reconstruction. This image also demonstrates a simple but poignant and even uncomfortable truth about how life on the Mississippi River is contingent upon external circumstances, most notably the whims of the weather. "High Water in the Mississippi presents a scene of a Mississippi River flood in which several former slaves sit atop the roof of a house among the flotsam and jetsam, two of the men with long poles trying to recover furniture floating in the river. One man tries to rescue a mule struggling in the water. A plantation house stands in the background, with two White residents waving at the large steamship Stonewall Jackson, which chugs by in the background. The lithograph is signed "J.M.I. Del." in the image, indicating that James Ives drew the lithograph from Palmer's original artwork. The illustration for this Currier & Ives print was created by the important artist, Frances Flora Bond Palmer. Palmer (1812–76) was the first woman in the United States to work as a professional artist and to make a living with her art. She prod

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