Thomas Nast Portfolio
“Third Round. First Knock Down for ‘The Boy’,”
New York
Illustrated News. May 11, 1860, cover. Wood
engraving.
The first international boxing
match to hold widespread
public interest was held in Farnborough, England in 1860
between John C. “Benecia Boy” Heenan, who claimed to
be the American champion in spite of the fact that
bare-knuckled fighting
was illegal in most of the United
States, and the English Champion, Tom Sayers. More than
2,500 spectators, including twenty-year-old Thomas Nast
on assignment from the New York Illustrated News,
watched the bout, which ended in a draw after forty-two
rounds. Within seven hours of the fight’s completion, Nast
created two double-page illustrations detailing the event
plus a cover drawing.
The wood engraving blocks were
then
sent to Southamption where they were put aboard a
ship bound for the United States. The boxwood plates
were completed during the crossing so that a special
edition of the newspaper could be printed as soon as
possible after the
ship docked in New York.