Collateral APUSH: A Thing of Beauty is a Joy ForeverThe Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor was lithographed in the year 1846 by the Currier and Ives company and by the artist of the artwork was Nathaniel Currier. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on March 27, 1813. His parents were Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, distant cousins. When Nathaniel was eight, his father died leaving eight-year-old Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old older brother Lorenzo to support his six-year-old younger sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles (Cunningham). He spent his time doing small, casual jobs to provide for his family, however when he was fifteen he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton, who were the first successful lithographers in the United States (Lebeau). In 1835 Currier managed to create his own lithography business, Currier & Ives, which is what created his legacy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The subject of the painting, The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor, is the dumping of tea into the water by men dressed as Indians. The painting also shows other settlers cheering these men on as they unload tea into the harbor. The purpose of this work is to portray the rebellion of the English colonists during the period preceding the American Revolution. Interestingly, this lithograph was the only prewar event of the Revolution that the Currier and Ives company chose to illustrate (Lebeau 52). His tone in the painting implies that he favored the colonists as the painting portrays the colonists as having full control over the situation. Currier's attitude in his paintings is positive, which can be supported by the fact that he portrays the settlers in a dignified manner applauding the organized destruction of the tea. Even those who are destroying the tea appear to be calm and their actions are well organized as they throw entire trunks of tea into Boston Harbor. Currier's attitude revealed in the depiction of the event gives the impression that the rebels were justified in dumping the tea in the harbor, showing his optimistic views regarding the Boston Tea Party. His positive view of the event is partial considering the fact that he was apprenticed to a Boston lithographer, and grew up during a time when the city had a renewed attitude towards the tea action (Young 184). Another factor to take into consideration is that Currier was making this painting to sell to other Americans, which could also influence his optimistic depiction of this event. The painting includes only American colonists and neglects to show any British influence, although a first-hand account by George Robert Twelve Hewes, a Boston shoemaker who participated in the Boston Tea Party, said, "We were surrounded by armed British ships" (Young 30 years). This artwork was well known at the time and was sold for several decades at the Currier & Ives store located in New York City, and was sold by street vendors across the country (Young 184). The event depicted in the artwork is known today as the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, a group of Bostonians protested the monopoly on the importation of American tea recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company, and seized 342 chests of tea in a night raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor ( Kennedy and Cohen 121). Nathaniel Currier's lithograph does not accurately show the events of the Boston Tea Party. The painting includes only two ships, however in reality three ships were plundered, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver (Destruction of the.