Figure 1.--This portrait of Jo... Gordon Downhill was painted by an unknown British artist about 1854. He wears a kilt and seems to gold a Glengary cap in his left hand.
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Figure 1.--This portrait of Jo... Gordon Downhill was painted by an unknown British artist about 1854. He wears a kilt and seems to gold a Glengary cap in his left hand. |
Here we have a portrait of Jo... Gordon Downhill. He stands on a landscape background, holding a book in his hand. He is seen inside a painted oval. His jacket or sweater-like garment is rather curious. We have nrever seen a garment like this before and are unsure just what it is. He seems to be dressed in a kilt and he holds a hat (probably a Glengarry) in his left hand. He has a friendly and open expression. The fact that he had his portasit painted suggests that he came from an affluent family, although the fact tghat it is not done by a master artist probably means that the family was not wildly worn. The artist is an unidentified British painter. The painting is unsigned, but has an old inscription on the reverse: "Jo..Gordon Downill born Wednesday 4th May 1843. This painting done by Mr. Be... nov. 1854". We believe that the boy is probably Scottish, Queen Victoria promoted the fashion of dressing boys in kilts during the 1840s, so he could bre Scottish. I'm not sure if Downhill is an English or Scottish name, but the background seems Scottish to me.
It shows that English or more probably Scottishg boys were wearing kilts in the 1850s.
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