Group of four children and a a lamb at center forefront. In left background in front of house is a group of four children playing in yard. To right in background is group of 10 sheep and lamb on a knoll. Verse below image: (to left and to right) In life’s sweet springtime, childhoods happy hours; Thoughtfulness of care and from its burden free, We roam o’er pleasant fields bedecked with flowers, An wake the echoes with our childish glee. Joining the lambkins play the birdlings song, Our pleasure pure as gold without alloy, With merry laugh we gaily bound along, And fear no future in the present joy.”
After Frances Flora Bond Palmer American, 1812-1876, and John Cameron American, 1830-1876 The Four Seasons of Life, a set of four prints, were popular images for the Victorian parlor. In the series, Currier & Ives offers idealized images of a successful and happy family and compares the seasons of nature to the cycle of life. In this first print of the series, children celebrate spring by playing, picking flowers and petting a newborn lamb. The Four Seasons of Life are the only known works to be transferred to the lithographic stone by James Merritt Ives.
