Figure 1.--We know nothing about this German family except that this photograph was taken in Berlin. I'm not sure when, but would guess about 1905. It's a little difficult to tell, but he seems to be wearing a fancy tunic and kneepants. Image courtesy of the RG collection. |
We know nothing about this German family except that it is a young Germann family. We know that this portrait was taken in Berlin. The family portrait is undated, but both the clothing and portrait style suggest about 1905. We believe that the child is a boy, buthere is no way to be positive about this, It's a little difficult to tell, but the child seems to be wearing a fancy plaid tunic. The child appears to have a hair style of two frizzy pony tails worn with a hair bow..
This German family is unidentified. Based on how threy were dressed, we would say this was a well to do family. They were certainly a very stylish family. Note not only the child's hair and clothes, but that great mustache the father is wearing. The portrait suggest that this boy was the couple's only son. Clearly the mother is lavishing her full attention on her child. We are not positive about the child's gender. The child has a rather boyish face, but with young children there is no way to be sure. The child's center hair part and what looks like a tunic rather than a dress also suggest a boy as does the plaid material. The frizzy pig tails seem more boyish. The hairbow is more complicated, see discussion below.
This is an easy portrait to locate, even id the photographic studio was not identified. The father's mustache clearly shows that the family is German. I believe that these mustaches were most popular in Prussia, but our German readers will need to confirm this. The know that this portrait was taken in a Berlin photographic studip, so presumably that was wear the family resided.
I'm not sure when, but would guess about 1905. A German reader confirms that this is a reasonable estimate.
We would estimate that the child is about 4-5 years old.
It is difficult to tell, but he seems to be wearing a fancy tunic rather than a dress. The reader who provided us this image reports that the child is wearing kneepants. Perhaps it is more vissible in the actual portrait, but we do not see the kneepants in the scanned impage. If the child was wearing kneepants, there would be no doubt that he was a boy. The tunic is done in a short style in plaid with black velvet trim. Note the square sailor collar styling. We are, however, not even sure if the child is wearing a tunic. A reader writes, "I can't see kneepants in this photograph. It looks to like a quite long piece of velvet trim on the end of the dress."
The boy's hair is done in two frizzy pig tails. This is not a hair style I have seen boys wearing very commonly. The boy here wears a rather large hair box. The bow seems tied rather differently than the ones we have noted girls wearing. The bow is tied with destinct tails. Also notice the hair part. It is donein a "Z". This seems rather unusual, but I doubt was done accidentally.
The hair bow in the image here is difficult to assess because we have so little information on German boys wearing hair bows. We know they did, but do not believe it was as common as many other countries. Our assessment because of our limited information on German hair bows is based on our understanding of hairbows for boys in general. First it has to be understood that there were no difinitive rules. Mothers could and did do what ever they wanted. Generally speaking, however, boys wore smaller hair bows than the one seen here. While we have noted boys wearing even larger hair bows, this was on the larger size of the soze range worn. Girls on the other hand commonly wore even much lsrger bows. Also they were common tied without bow tails. They were often placed at the side of a boy's head as is the case here, rather than the top or back of the head as was more common for girls. The placement here is very important. While girls did sometimes wear bows on the side of their head as seen here, the overwealming majority of girls wore them on the top or bsavl of their head or alterntively small bows on their pig tails.
A German reader writes, "I think 1905 is really a good guess based on the clothing and style of the portrait. The dark cardboard and the golden
letters-style on the stufio logo supports this theory. [HBC note: HBC only shows the image area. This is done to maximize the image on your screen and to limit the size of the computer file.] Are you absolutely sure that we have here a boy in this picture? Well, the face looks rather boyish. But curly hair, the flower basket and the dress? I think U.S. mothers put more little boys in dresses than German ones (a guess because of the results of my photo collection and all I have seen so far). Yes, the child's dress is rather plain and the side parting of the hair are signs for a boy. But still I am not completely convinced."
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