David Elwood "Dave" Rowe, Manager and Center Field, Denver, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1889

Curator: Let's consider this card featuring David Elwood "Dave" Rowe, Manager and Center Field, Denver, crafted around 1889 as part of the "Old Judge" series for Old Judge Cigarettes. It's an albumen print, currently residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Immediately, there's a classical grace despite the subject. The lean towards antique sepia tones makes it quite captivating and feels simultaneously energetic and strangely…still. The figure is well balanced. Curator: Indeed, the albumen print medium imparts that lovely sepia tone and softens the details, flattening the image, even while endeavoring to capture a snapshot of a real, moving person. It highlights line and form above all else. Observe the carefully positioned limbs. Editor: Yes, the baseball player—an emerging American archetype—poised mid-throw. One feels the nascent mythology of baseball brewing beneath its surface. The symbols are palpable, from the worn cap and uniform, to the motion about to unfold in full force, an expression of skill and agility. Curator: The photographer—Goodwin & Company—have truly framed a study in tension. It uses contrast between dark and light to imply action within what is necessarily a static composition. His bent elbow forms a sort of triangle that gives way to a long stretched-out line to the tips of his fingers; it really holds my attention. Editor: Rowe himself becomes almost secondary, a vehicle for the broader themes—skill, perseverance, the spirit of American innovation. It echoes something of the older ideas around physical excellence one finds in ancient Greek and Roman statues but rendered democratically…and on a cigarette card, accessible to all. The "Old Judge" imagery on the packaging, of course, is the brand invoking gravitas and trustworthiness to suggest you, too, could become an Old Judge of your sport or skill! Curator: It’s the interplay of subject and marketing. That is also structurally clever: action in stillness, reality marketed through romance. A simple object and its effective composition! Editor: Precisely, leaving us pondering not just a baseball player, but the dreams he represents and the stories embedded in the everyday objects that surrounded him—and ourselves.