Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA - Woodcock Shooting - 1855 - T-Shirt

Nathaniel Currier's 1855 hand-coloured lithograph Woodcock Shooting shows a sportsman in the field, his dogs working the cover, and a woodcock breaking from the brush.

Visual Elements & Composition

The print is a horizontal rectangle with a wide caption margin along the bottom, and its palette is built from leaf green, sky blue, and bark brown. Green foliage and large trees fill much of the frame, while a pale blue coat draws the eye to the man in a straw hat raising his shotgun. Two woodcock birds are in flight, and a white-and-liver setter holds a point beside a black retriever. The lettering reads WOODCOCK SHOOTING. and 152 NASSAU STREET N.Y., set into the margin like a publisher's imprint.

Meaning & Symbolism

The scene captures the instant of the flush, the moment between the dog's point and the shot, when hunter, dog, and game are all in motion at once. Hunting in the mid-nineteenth century was a gentlemanly pastime that tied its participants to the rural American landscape, and the print celebrates that partnership between sportsman, working dog, and woodland. Currier, later joined by James Ives, produced affordable prints like this one in large numbers to decorate the homes of a growing middle class during rapid industrialisation.

Made for the Tee

A tee carries this image across the chest, where the whole scene reads at once, from the trees at the top to the birds in flight. The woodland tones sit naturally on a simple crew-neck shirt, so the print can be seen the way it was first meant to be seen: as a scene of open country and a single moment of action.