Horning, Left Field, Boston, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887

Goodwin & Company produced this baseball card from the "Old Judge" series around 1887 using a photographic process on card stock. The sepia tones give the image a nostalgic feel, a quality echoed by the player’s posed stance and uniform. What strikes me most is the composition. Horning is positioned off-center, creating a dynamic tension within the small frame. The lines of his body—the angle of the bat, the bend of his knee—intersect with the implied lines of the backdrop, creating a series of triangles and parallelograms that structure the space. This geometric underpinning provides a sense of stability. The text, neatly arranged at the top and bottom, functions as a kind of frame within a frame, drawing attention to the figure while also reminding us that this is a commercial object, a signifier of both baseball and the Old Judge Cigarettes brand. The card straddles the line between art and advertising. It invites us to consider how meaning is constructed through both visual representation and textual cues.