Artists Illustrating Boys' Fashions: H Cürn (Unknown country, 1896)



Figure 1.--The artist here is H Cürn. We believe he is European, but have no idea what country he is from. We do know that he was active in 1896. He did portraits, but probably had little training. The portrait is a boy probably about 6-8 years old dressed in a blue sailor suit. The collar is not like any I have ever seen before.

The artist here is H. Cürn. We believe he is European, but have no idea what country he is from. We do know that he was active in 1896. All that we know about him is that he was what looks like a talented, but naive artist. He is the kind of arist that often very little information exists. He did portraits, but probably had little training. The portrait is a boy probably about 6-8 years old dressed in a blue sailor suit. Thye boy looks very grave which was more common in photographs. He has short brown hair leans against a low wall in his right hand he has the barrel of a toy gun. with an unusual collar. The collar is not like any I have ever seen before. Rather than detailed with stripes, it is done with some kind of pattern. As this is a paining, one has to ask about the accuracy of this depiction. An artist can of course paint what ever he wants. We believe this is an actual depiction. First of all, this is a commissioned portrait. I see no reason why a client would want an unusual collar painted. Second, painting this pattern would have been more time consuming than stripes. The artist's name might seem German, but the boy's sailot collar suggests to us that the boy may have lived somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Perhaps our readers will know more. One reader writes, "I have the impression that there is something vaguely Northern European about the boy here, but I really do not have a good idea about where the portrait was taken." Another reader writes, "I seem to see a slight Asian look on the boy's face."







HBC





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Created: 11:18 PM 5/7/2006
Last updated: 4:48 AM 5/9/2006