Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA - Lady Suffolk and Lady Moscow - 1850 - T-Shirt

This hand-coloured lithograph from 1850 shows two celebrated trotting horses, Lady Suffolk and Lady Moscow, racing side by side with their drivers.

Visual Elements & Composition

The scene is a wide horizontal panel. A white horse at full stride and a dark bay horse take up the centre, each pulling a light two-wheeled sulky. Pale sky fills the upper quarter, and tree green frames the background. The sandy track runs across the lower half and leads the eye along the line of the race. A driver in a blue coat and cap sits in the foreground, and a driver in a green jacket follows behind. The palette is restrained: soft neutrals, earthy greens, and the deep brown of the bay.

Meaning & Symbolism

Lady Suffolk and Lady Moscow were among the best-known trotting horses of the nineteenth century. Their racing careers drew crowds and newspaper coverage, and their names became familiar across America. Harness racing was growing into a major national spectator sport when this print appeared, and the image honours the speed, endurance and breeding that fans admired. Nathaniel Currier, who later partnered with James Ives, ran a prolific firm that turned popular subjects like this into affordable prints, documenting daily life and sport in the period.

Made for the Turf, Worn Everyday

This artwork is built around motion and a clear focal point, so it reads well across the front of a shirt. The two horses carry the composition, with the drivers and landscape placed around them. Wearing it puts a piece of antebellum sporting history in an everyday setting, where the racing scene and its historic character can be seen up close.