LIFE OF A FIREMAN - THE FIRE 1952 Louis Maurer - Nathaniel Currier PRINT

Original 1952 Reprint 13 1/2 inch x 8 1/2 inch Colour Print of the 1854 Lithograph titled THE LIFE OF A FIREMAN - The fire. - “Now then with a will - Shake her up boys!”

Firemen working on “J.S. SMith & Co.” building. Here, fire fighters climb ladders to rescue residents from a burning building. In a dramatic touch, a fireman emerges from a third-story window with a baby, while the child’s mother on the ground raises her arms in relief. Many featured scenes of offered descriptions of the latest fire fighting equipment. The print was the first to be used as an advertisement by an insurance company, the American Insurance Company of Newark, NJ, which substituted their name for the title of the work..

After Louis Maurer (1832 - 1932). A German-born American lithographer, and the father of the American painter Alfred Henry Maurer. He was the last surviving artist known to have been employed by Currier and Ives. Prior to his death, Maurer was extensively interviewed about the firm by collector and connoisseur Harry T. Peters for his book Currier & Ives, Printmakers to the American People.
Maurer was born in Biebrich, Germany, and studied anatomy, mechanical drawing, and lithography in Mainz before immigrating to the United States in 1851. He began working as a lithographer at the firm of T.W. Strong in 1852. Later that same year he joined Currier and Ives, working there until 1860. Maurer's series The Life of a Fireman (1854) was a popular lithography series produced for Currier and Ives.

Originally produced in 1869 by Currier and Ives. The New York firm of Currier & Ives grew from a printing business established by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) in 1835. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with brother-in-law James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). The firm operated until 1907, lithographing over 4,000 subjects for distribution across America and Europe with popular categories including landscape, marines, natural history, genre, caricatures, portraits, history and foreign views. Until the 1880s, images were printed in monochrome, then hand-colored by women who worked for the company at home.

Inscription under the image: “L. MAURER DEL. // Entered according to Act of Congress in the Year 1854, by N. Currier, in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the Southern District of N.Y. // Reprinted from LITH. BY N. CURRIER”

Published by Bonanza Books, New York

Plate size 15 3/8 inch x 11 5/8 inch

Reverse side blank

The print is in very good condition.