Scene at a dance
1840-1850
Imagine the fiddle music is so loud you can almost hear it through the paper! Felix Octavius Carr Darley, often called the first American master of illustration, captures a wild country dance in full swing here. Couples are twirling energetically in the center while a fiddler perches on a barrel to be heard over the noise, and neighbors crane their necks through windows and peek over the doorframe just to catch the action. The inscription 'Darley invent et sculp' at the bottom reveals he both designed and engraved this charming slice of American folk life himself, likely for a popular story like Washington Irving's tales.
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