Football, an Arthur Thiele Postcard, c. 1905

A German illustrator’s match, made to be posted and kept.

Work: illustrated postcard
Maker: Arthur Thiele
Date: c. 1905
Era: The Edwardian game · 1901–1918
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The game went everywhere on a postcard.

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

Arthur Thiele, born in 1860 and working in Germany until his death in 1936, drew for nearly everything that could be printed: sheet music, diplomas, school primers, designs for paper lanterns, children’s books and, above all, postcards. The postcard played a major role in his work, and this is one of them, an association football match from about 1905. Thiele’s match is made for a postcard’s life, quick to read and lively in the hand. It shows the game the way many Europeans first met it in pictures, on a card that cost little and could go anywhere.

See it on your wall

The piece, in the room it was made for

Football, an Arthur Thiele Postcard, c. 1905, printed large and framed — in the den, the club bar, the supporters’ bar. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

Football, an Arthur Thiele Postcard, c. 1905 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of illustrated postcard — Arthur Thiele, c. 1905 — from the copy held by Wikimedia Commons. The source. The work was published before 1931 and is public-domain verified.
Printed faithful to that source scan — restore honestly, disclose always. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the piece you receive is the image as it survives, halftone grain honored as history, not damage.
Printed to order on museum-grade cotton-rag stock with pigment inks — the pairing is rated 100+ years.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the period’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed editions ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our pieces cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the maker’s hand is visible — the linework, the halftone grain, the lettering — on materials made to outlast their owner.

From the same collection