A cabinet card photograph of a curious cricketing ephemeron if ever there was one
The albumen paper photograph (approximately 78 × 143 mm, mounted on a standard cabinet card, 108 × 167 mm) takes the form of a triptych. The left and right panels contain 'The Noble Game of Cricket', five quatrains of verse 'written with the right and left hands' as mirror images. The central panel reproduces a watercolour painting of 'The Australian Eleven', comprising head-and-shoulders vignettes of Bannerman, Blackham, Bonnor, Boyle, Garrett, Giffen, Horan, Jarvis, Jones, Massie, Murdoch and Spofforth floating around and among cricket equipment, floral bouquets, coats of arms and more .... The lettering in the bottom margin is indistinct, but the copyright-registered original is credited (as far as we can work out) to one 'W.R. Andrews, Calligraphist to His Excellency, Adelaide'. The photograph is in fine condition; the mount has a few trifling blemishes. This rarity is as much an oddity of photography as it is of cricket. The members of this 'team' were all active in the early 1880s; we have not identified a match where all eleven played together.
Item #116579
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