Figure 1.-- All we know for sure about the portrait here is that the children came from Berlin. Surely they are siblings. The common portrait and age range strongly suggest this. The portrait is undated. We would guess it was in the late 1880s or early 90s. The younger child is a boy, but we are not sure just what he is wearing.

Most images are fairly easy to classify. Others are much more difficult. This is both because of the garments as well as trying to determine just who is wearing them. This is the case because most available portraits are unidentified. Hopefully HBC readers will have some insights here.

Berlin Children

All we know for sure about the portrait here is that the children came from Berlin (figure 1). Surely they are siblings. The common portrait and age range strongly suggest this. The portrait is undated. We would guess it was in the late 1880s or early 90s. The older child is a boy. He wears a floppy bow, kneepants suit woth rather sheer blacl long stockings. Most boys wore thicker stockings. Iassume this was a dress-up pair. The middle child is a bot more difficult. The hair is rather short for a girl, but we know that some girls had short hair, just as some boys had long hair. The child wears a simple sleeveless dress. We assume that ghis means the child is a girl, although there is no way to be etirely positive about this. She does nor wear stockings like her older brother. The younger child is a boy, but we are not sure just what he is wearing. It is another sleevless garment. The belt suggests a tunic, but it does really not look like a tunic. The younger boy also does not wear stockings. A reader writes, "I submitted this photo several years ago but forget where >you archived it. Is this the same page as before or a new page with >the same photo? I recall that we speculated about the clothing--perhaps indicating a theatrical performance of some kind." I thought the image looked familiar, but forgot where I archived it. The children do seem to be dressed dufferently than most Germn portraits I have noted. You might wander if it was a theatrcal or artsy family. Another interesting aspect is the props are that the children are holding. The boys look to be holding a riding crop and beer stine. The girls seems to be holding a long ribbon. I have never seen that before.

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Created: 1:28 AM 9/19/2006
Last updated: 1:28 AM 9/19/2006