Figure 1.--The image here shows a boy outfitted in his best velvet party suit about to be presented to Chancellor Bismarck, probably some time in the ealy 1890s. The boy is obviously a bit dubious about the encounter. His sister is trying to encourage him. The long hair and Little Lord Fauntleroy suit are interesting because it looks right out of Mrs. Burnett's bool "Little Lord Fauntleroy" that ignited the Fauntleroy craze. The illuustration was drawn by C.W. Allers. We believe that this a very acurate depiction of an actual event and boy's costume. Unlike some illustrators, who were often inventive, Allers very acurately drew the costumes of the day. Click on the image for a fuller discussion of the boy's suit.

We have noted one very impressive and prolific German illustrator--Christian Wilhelm Allers. He is often referred to as just C.W. Allers. He was active at the turn of the century. Unfortunately we have little information about him at this time. His illustrations cover a wide range of topics, but we note that the drew clothing and hair styles in meticulous detail. Unfortunalely we know very little about him. He was born in Hamburg during 1857 and died in 1915 at Karlsruhe. He was an iIllustrator and painter. I'm not sure just when he began illustaring, but we note published illustraions in Gartenlaube by 1887. We believe there were many ealier illustrations. We thought that he lived and worked in Berlin between 1902 and 1914. A reader writes, "This is completely wrong, he did not enter germany in that time but made trips around the world. This is because he became involved in a scandal "Krupp Skandal" in Capri in 1902. [Fahrenhorst] We have also noted some work from Australia and New Zealand under the name of William Andreson. He portrayed the Earl of Ranfurly, Governor of New Zealand, in 1903. He is perhpas best known for his many sketches of Berliners and also of the German aristocracy, including the children. His range of topics, however, was must wider including exotic subjects such as Chinese opium addicts and trained circus monkies. He illustratedlarge numbers of books as well drawing for publications like Gartenlaube. One of the many books he illustrated was Hans Kraemer's Unser Bismarck (1900). We have added several of his drawings to our biography of Bismarck and readers may want to look at these pages.

Sources

Fahrenhorst, Gerd. E-mail message, May 29, 2004. Gerd has a German website with more details about Allers.

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Created: September 27, 2002
Last updated: 6:07 AM 5/29/2005