Lot # 2: 1863 "Union Prisoners at Salisbury, N.C." Lithographic Print

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Drawn by Union officer and artist Otto Boetticher while held as a prisoner of war at Salisbury Confederate Prison in North Carolina, Union Prisoners at Salisbury, N.C. is a rare and historically significant offering, one of the earliest-known visual depictions of baseball and a key artifact of both baseball and Civil War history. The hand-colored lithograph, produced by Sarony, Major & Knapp of New York and published in 1863, pictures Union prisoners playing baseball within the prison compound, in view of guards and townspeople. 

Based on prisoner diaries documenting their daily routines, it is likely that the baseball game pictured was played during the first half of 1862, when prisoners played games, gambled (as evidenced by the dice game also depicted in the print), played cards, read, and even published their own newspaper. Union and Confederate prisoners were treated humanely and regularly exchanged. As the war ground on, conditions began to worsen, and after the summer of 1862, prisoner exchanges stopped. By early 1863, the Salisbury prison primarily held Southern prisoners - defectors, political prisoners, and so forth, the Union prisoners temporarily moved elsewhere.

The artist, Otto Botticher, was a Prussian immigrant and Union captain who was captured in March of 1862. He was released in a prisoner exchange in September of 1862. Prior to the war, Botticher was a painter in New York and New Jersey, a vocation he continued after the war. 

This is widely considered the most important of all early baseball lithographs. During the Civil War, thousands of soldiers played baseball on fields and in prisons like this, their enjoyment of the game lending a temporary respite to the daily stress of war. Upon the war's conclusion, soldiers brought the game home with them, leading to the game's explosion in popularity in the late 19th Century, when it established itself as the country's national pastime. This lithograph quite literally pictures the birth of baseball.

The lithograph is extremely rare and desirable today. It is likely that no more than a dozen exist, including one at the Baseball Hall of Fame, another at the New York Public Library, and one that was part of the Harry T. Peters "America On Stone" Lithography collection at the National Museum of American History. This example has been tucked away in a private collection for some time. It has been exquisitely framed to a finished size of 49" x 35".

Overall, the print is in outstanding condition, with no signs of repair or inpainting. As is the case with many examples of this print, light background staining is evident, due to the chemical reaction between the paper and the wood slats of the frames in which they were once displayed. The staining was likely once heavier, but the piece has long ago benefited from professional cleaning. Unfortunately, that cleaning also yielded a lightening at the lower border of the piece, about 12" in length, which presents as a light-colored stain. The cleaning has lightened the color of the piece somewhat, though it still presents extraordinarily well. Some tiny edge tears and wrinkles can be observed upon close inspection at the edges; the frame prevents us from examining the reverse and extreme edges of the piece. It should be noted that with the exception of the aforementioned background staining, the condition issues here are largely restricted to the border areas of the piece, with the entire image area free of significant flaws.

In the bottom-right corner, the piece contains an inscription from the artist that reads, "Presented to my beloved son Alfred Botticher, Christmas 1884, the Author." Botticher died in 1886; his son Alfred passed in 1917. The inscription clearly places provenance of the piece right with the very artist who created the extraordinary image, gifting this lithograph to his son just two years before he died.

One of the few surviving contemporary artworks documenting the daily life of Union POWs and the role of baseball as a morale-boosting pastime, a museum-caliber centerpiece for any advanced collection of baseball memorabilia, Civil War artifacts, or American history.

Size: large
Condition: yes

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