Maggs Bros.

Rare. We have located one other example of this printing on cotton but in red ink at the London Museum (with a large hole in the upper right-hand corner).

A very well-preserved example of a printed handkerchief showing children playing various different sports and games.

The central vignette shows a group of five boys and girls gathered under the foliage of trees. From left to right, a boy plays his drum, a girl wearing a large hat carries a pole, a boy with a dog on a leash holds the hand of a girl carrying a doll, a girl sits on the bank looking at a bird that’s landed on her hand, in the slight foreground a boy curls up with his cat. The four corners of the handkerchief show smaller vignettes of various sports. IN the top right a group of four boys play at “Buffet the Bear”, in the bottom right three young women are “tossing the ball”, in the bottom left boys fly a kite and in the top they skate. It is decorated with a thin border motif of crosses and flowers.