Artists Illustrating Boys' Fashions: Louis Leopold Boilly (1761-1845)

Figure 1.--This street scene painted by Boilly in 1812 show that boys were wearing skeleton suits with long trousers while men were still wearing knee breeches.

Louis Leopold Boilly, French genre and portrait painter, was born at La Russee.

Genre Paintings

The tradition of paintings scenes of everyday life began in the Netherlands. It was in 18th century France, however, that it reached the peak of elegance and sophistication. In the 19th century genre painting developed into social realism, with subjects often taken from the lives of ordinary people. The paintings provide valuable information on children's clothes.

Career

Boilly was much influenced by the Dutch genre painters. Notable among the incredible 5,000 paintings and drawing credited to him is The Arrival of the Diligence (Louvre, 1803). Some of his paintings and real life scenes provide interesting glimpses of French boys' fashions of his time.

Figure 2.--Boilly painted the "Family Party" in 1803. It is located by the Mus_e des Beaux-Arts de Lille. I'm not sure who the children are. The child at the center is presumably a girl and a boy sits at the right. The child at the left could be a boy.