Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA - Preparing for Market - 1856 - T-Shirt

Nathaniel Currier's 1856 hand-colored lithograph Preparing for Market shows a farm family readying their produce, horses, and poultry for the trip to town.

Visual Elements & Composition

The print is a rectangular scene framed by margins, with a vertical farmhouse facade and gabled barn roofs anchoring the background. The palette is dominated by sandy beige and sky blue, balanced by forest green, white, and dark brown. A farmer loads produce into a basket, a white horse stands harnessed to a wagon, and a dark bay horse waits at a hitching post. Nearby, a young boy carries a bucket, a woman in a bonnet and striped dress moves through the yard, and a black-and-white dog, a hen with chicks, and a turkey fill the foreground. The words PREPARING FOR MARKET. appear as the title line.

Meaning & Symbolism

The scene records the labor that stood between a nineteenth-century farm and the town markets that depended on it. Every figure has a role in that chain, from loading the wagon to tending the animals, and the image celebrates the dedication that kept growing American populations fed. It also marks the shift from local farming toward wider commercial networks. Currier, a prominent American printmaker, later partnered with James Ives, and together they produced accessible lithographs that shaped the nation's visual culture.

Made for the Wearer Who Wants the Scene Close

A printed tee puts this farmyard across the chest, where the full composition reads at a glance and the small details, the boy with his bucket and the hen with her chicks, come into view as the wearer moves. The rural routine of the 1850s suits everyday wear, with its market-day bustle and its quiet, hardworking calm carried onto the shirt.