Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA - Wild Duck Shooting - ca. 1837 - T-Shirt

This is a hand-colored lithograph from the 1830s, showing an American hunter at work among the wetlands as wild ducks rise from the water.

Visual Elements & Composition

The scene is built around a single moment of engagement. The hunter and the waterfowl sit at the centre of the picture, and the surrounding marsh and open landscape frame them. Nothing in the composition is decorative. Every element points toward the chase, so the eye moves from the figure to the birds and back again.

Meaning & Symbolism

Wild duck shooting in this period was both a source of food and a respected sporting pursuit. The print records that dual role and the self-reliance it demanded, qualities that belonged to the rural life of early America and to its growing sense of national identity. Currier made the work early in his career, before his partnership with Ives produced the Currier & Ives firm. It reflects the demand for affordable, high-quality prints that carried scenes of everyday American life into middle-class homes, and it stands as an example of early commercial printmaking held today in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

Wearing the Scene

A tee puts this landscape on the body rather than on a wall. The hunter and the marsh are printed across the chest, so the scene is seen as you move, in the same way a viewer would walk past a framed print. The shirt's classic crew neck keeps the composition clean and unbroken, letting the wetlands and waterfowl read as one continuous picture.