[circa 1870].
Price: $3,000.00
Unbound. Stitched textile panel (12” x 17 ½”). A charming early depiction of a baseball player, most likely a Cincinnati Red Stocking, with “RED” stitched above a pictorial figure of a leg on the player’s shirt. The player’s cap also closely resembles the caps worn by the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1868, one year before they became baseball’s first all-professional team in 1869, with ten salaried players. It is possible, though less likely, that the player could be a member of the Boston Red Stockings: a team that was composed of former players of the Cincinnati Red Stockings franchise in 1871, who were brought to Boston and kept the name. The textile design features the player dressed in blue pants and shoes, stitched on a center panel in a rigid stance with the right leg forward, upon a horizontal strip of patterned fabric, and flanked within two distinct rectangular fabric borders. The fabric is toned and moderately soiled, with a partial (three-inch) split along the upper right corner of the inner border, good or better overall. A rare and pleasing artifact from the beginnings of baseball in America.
Item #541696
