Seward, Pitcher, Philadelphia Athletics, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

Curator: There's a strange, melancholic charm to this piece. Editor: Absolutely. This is a baseball card featuring Seward, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, made by Goodwin & Company around 1888, part of the "Old Judge" series designed as promotional inserts for cigarettes. What strikes you particularly? Curator: The sepia tone, of course, but also the rather surreal landscape behind him. He seems oddly placed, as if performing on some otherworldly stage, doesn't he? And something about his stare...lost in thought before the throw. Editor: The staged nature of early photography certainly contributes to that. And those rugged rocks and faded horizon evoke Romantic landscapes...a nod to grand artistic traditions applied to this humble piece of Americana. The symbolism suggests more than just a game, perhaps the confrontation between Man and Nature. Curator: Exactly! It elevates him, but also isolates him. Baseball became a myth in that era, it took on something transcendental. You can feel it there in this card, where an everyday image brushes the mythic. But isn't the Old Judge reference, advertising cigarettes, ironic for an athlete portrait? Editor: That irony is part of its cultural resonance now, I believe. Cigarettes were a widespread form of consumption, now demonized... linking aspiration (the athlete) with habits we now know as deeply destructive, there is the story of an epoch and our cultural journey, embedded into visual format. Curator: A premonition, in a way. But still, I find the composition incredibly dreamy. Even that somewhat awkwardly posed arm adds a layer of unexpected grace to this little photograph. Like poetry trapped in tobacco promotion! Editor: And, despite its intended purpose as a fleeting commodity, it became something iconic, now treasured in museum collections. Think of what meanings people attached to this object over a hundred years, and which one would make sense for us. This dialogue opens up just as much symbolic paths as the image itself. Curator: And I think it gives you hope; it tells you, anyone can become iconic. Editor: Absolutely. Thanks!