Figure 1.--Here we see a tinted portrait. It was a large print for wall hanging and not a cabinent card, prinably taken in the 1890s. We are not sure about the precise shade or if the boy at right had a matching blouse. This does suggests, however, that boys did have light-blue bows because mothers almost certsainly woukld have wanted some degree of color accuracy.

We have noted a range of colors in the various available images. The colors included black, blue, brown, green, pink, red, and white. We have not yet found yellow and orange. There were also multi-color bows done un patterns like plaid, pokadots, and stripes. We are not sure about these multiple-color bows. Our color information, however, is still relatively limited. While as we have discussed, these are not color photographs and thus the accuracy of the depictions has to be considered. Even so, the fact that these colors appears in the tinted images has to be considered.

Black

Black is onr of the easier colors of floppy bows to assess. Like white it vis usually possible to discern the black bows. This is not foolproof. red can often register a very dark color, but we can often make out the black bows.

Blue

As best we can tell, blue was the most popular color for the floppy bows worn by merican boys. Quite a few of the colorized portraits we have found show boys wearing blue bows. This is still a preliminary assessment as we have only archived a small number of colorized images. There are of course many shades of blue. The blues used for floppy bows seem primarily the lighter shades at least in the colorized images we have found to date. This is probably becuse ligh blue contrasted best with dark suits. We are not sure why blue was so popular. We are not sure it was a ender matter. Girls also wore blue bows, but the large floppy collar bows were most popular for boys.

Brown

We had thought that the floppy boys were often bright cilors, at least the ones that were not black and white. It seems a bit strange to have a fancy floppy bow and do it in a rather plain color. But that is a modern assessment. Mothers at the time msy have had entirely duifferent perspectives. Some colorized images show brown bows. Of course a colorized image is not the same as a color photograph. But we suspect that colorized images often wree the right color. we think that a mother paying a good price to have an image colorized would have not been pleased ro find colors radomly chosen. And we have seen orders specifying the color of the garments in the image to colorize. We do not know how common brown bows were. We do know, however, that brown was a very common color for suits and pants.

Green

We see an unidentified boy wearing a green with a brown suit on the previous page. We are not sure how common green bows were. Ir what color suits they might be wirn with.

Pink

We notice a few boys wearing pink bows. A good example is an unidentified boy wearing a Brown Fauntleroy outfit in the late-1890s.

Red

We had thought that red bows were fairly common, especially with black Fauntleroy suits. I think this is because illustrations often show this combination. We can not, however, support this assessment with colorized images we have found.

White

White is the one color that can be determined in the 19th century black-and white portrais. Of couirse some may be light, pastel shades. But unless the pastel was a very pale shade, it is usually possible to tell the difference, although not the color of the pastels. We see quite a few boys with white floppy bows. They seen espcislly popilsr around the turn-od-the 20th century.

Created: 6:52 AM 11/17/2009
Last updated: 3:56 AM 11/7/2011