Price: SOLD
SKU: 79710
PUBLISHER: Lith. of Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St. N.Y.
MEDIUM: Lithograph handcolored,
DATE: 1866
EDITION SIZE: Large folio - image size 19 5/8 x 29 3/4" (49.9 x 75.6 cm).
DESCRIPTION: Best Fifty Currier & Ives Lithographs. Large folio size. #14.<BR> Currier & Ives. The New Best 50. #9. <BR><BR> One of the earliest representations of a baseball game and the most important image of baseball published in the nineteenth-century.<BR><BR> The Elysian Fields have a long history in Baseball. The game depicted in this image is a match between the Mutual Club of New York and the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn held in 1865. It was reported that 20,000 fans attended the game. <BR><BR> In 1845 the New York City baseball team the Knickerbocker Club began using the Elysian Fields in Hoboken New Jersey to play baseball because there were not suitable fields in Manhattan. It became a popular field for other clubs and was in regular use in the 1850’s and 1860’s. In 1856 Henry Chadwick a writer for the New York Times wrote:<BR><BR> "I chanced to go through Elysian Fields during the progress of a contest between the noted Eagle and Gotham Clubs. The game was being sharply played on both sides, and I watched it with deeper interest that any previous ball match between clubs I had seen. It was not long before I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans."<BR><BR> Because of the public’s interest in baseball after the Civil War, a park with fences and a grandstand was built in Brooklyn called Union Grounds. As they could charge admission to view a game, most baseball teams moved to the new grounds by the late 1860’s.<BR><BR>
ADDITIONAL INFO:
CONDITION:
REFERENCE: Conningham #180
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