Figure 1.--This elaboately framed image (probanly an albumen print) is a colrized portrait of an unientified American boy. He has a blue plaid tunic with a white collar ans wrist cuffs. Notice the vlue stramers on his hat. We think the portrait was made about 1860 because these tunics were more common in the 1850 and albumen printing became important in the very early 1860s. The frame measures approximately 12 1/4" wide by 14 1/4" high. It is shown in a gilt Wood and gesso frame. The studio was Fredricks Photograph & Saguerreotype Gallery at Broadway in New York. This as an unscale studio ad shws that these tunic outfits were worn by boys from fashionable families. They are very common in the photographic record. Charles DeForest Fredricks (1823-94) was a well established 19th century American photographer who received awards for his photographic oil colors and watercolors. He photographed John Wilkes Boothe, at thetime a popular actor in 1862. Click on the image to see the frame.

We are not sure about the colors used for tunic done in patterned fabric. Here we need to consider both the color of the tunic, but also the color of the pattern used on the tunic. The patterns were of course done in different colors. And this varied over time. Pattens seem most commn in the mid-19th century. We see boys wearing shirt-like tunics, often with belts. They commnly have plaid or plaid-like patterns. We believe that they were very colorful garments. The many grey shades sugges this, but we have been able to find very little color infomation. The only color information we have found are colorized photographic images, although we have found very few. These unfortunately mostly appear about 1860 when the CDV appared. Colorized images of course are not color photographs providing precise color informtion, but believe that the colorized portraits are generally correct. Patterns are a very differnt matter. Colorizing patterns is much more complicated and time consuming than colorizing a plain color tunic. Some are less sure about the accuracy, especially if more than two colors are involved. We see patterns again becoming popular at the turn-of-the 20th century. Here we see mostly striped tunics. While we can not assess the pattern color given the black-and-white photography of the day, but we can access darkness. Most commonly we see colored patterns with light backgrounds, but we have noted dark tunics with light patterns as well. And we can often discern both black ans white, although some dark colors like navy blue will look like black.

Created: 4:17 AM 7/2/2014
Last edited: 4:17 AM 7/2/2014