Figure 1.--We know nothing about this portrait, except that it was made in York, Pennsylvania. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1880s. We are not sure, but it looks to us that the portrait was costumed and posed to maske a Tom Sawyer and Beck Thatcher scene. The pose is noit a normal brother-sister pose. Not only the pose suggests this, but we believe that the clothes the boy wears are not the normal clothes for 1880s portraits. We are not sure what the band hanging down from the boy's shirt is.

We note boys having their portraits taken in what seem to be Tom Sawyer costumes. It is difficulty to be sure in some of the early images without provinance. We begin to see these images in what we believe to be the 1880s. The image here looks to us to be a costumed depiction of Tom Sawyer and Beck Thatcher (figure 1). Later images are unmistakingly Tom, but we can not be positive about some of the early imazges. Such costume images are relatively rate ion America. Generally speaking American parents wanted portraits of their children in their best clothes and were less likely to take a light-hearted approsch to portraits. We seem mpre costumed children inm European portraits.

We know nothing about this portrait, except that it was made in York, Pennsylvania. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1880s. We are not sure, but it looks to us that the portrait was costumed and posed to maske a Tom Sawyer and Beck Thatcher scene. The pose is noit a normal brother-sister pose. Not only the pose suggests this, but we believe that the clothes the boy wears are not the normal clothes for 1880s portraits. We are not sure what the band hanging down from the boy's shirt is. A British reader writes, "Looks to me like he is wearing what we Brits call braces and Americans call suspenders. Perhaps he has pulled the material way beyond the metal loop thing that holds them in place." This could be. The image is not very clear. The strap seems to come out of a slit in the boy's shirt.

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Created: 6:22 PM 11/10/2004
Last updated: 7:01 PM 11/10/2004