Figure 1.--Renoir painted Jean and Genevieve Caillebotte, the son and daughter of Martial Caillebotte in 1893. Note the hair bows on both children.

HBC has analized some specific photographs of individual French boys or families. Information on the families in which boys wore hair bows and some details on the individual boys involved. Information is available on only a few such families, but HBC hopes to acquire details on more families. Some of the inviduals involved are well known and we can this clearly identify the chronology inolved. When the provinance is known, HBC can make more definitive assessments of other factors such as ocial connotations. Two of the best known families were the De Lesseps and Renoir families, but information must be available on many more French families. We also have added individuals that we can not identify. In such cases our assessment is thus much more specualtive. The quality of many of these images, however, is such that we can note details about hair styling and hairbows.

Caillebotte family

We know more about the Renoir family because he loved to paint his children. It was not unusual for French boys to wear hair bows and there are paintings and photographs from many other families. One such family was the Caillebotte family. Both their son and daughter had long hair dome up with hair bows.

Figure 2.--Portrait of the De Lesseps family taken about 1888-89 by Nadar, the famed French photographer. Despite the hair bows on all the younger children, several are in fact boys.

De Lesseps

Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps (1805-94) was a noted French diplomat and engineer. He was born on November 19, 1805 in Versailles, France. His Family was long distinguished in the French diplomatic service. While in Egypt on a visit in 1832 he began to plan a project to construct a canal across the Isthmus of Suez. Work was begun in 1859 and the canal was formally opened in 18 69. De Lesseps who sumounted enormous engineering, diplomatic, and administrative difficulties was awarded many honors and widely proclaimed throughout France. De Lesseps had two mairrages, one as a young man and a second as an older man. All together he had 17 children and countless grand children. The young second Madame de Lesseps (Louise-Helene) appers to have delighted in dressing the children in pretty outfits. Perhaps it was her youthful romantic outlook or perhaps it was a special interest in fashionable attire, she was after all still a teenager when first married. We know for a fact that the older boys (Paul and John) wore dresses like their sister when they were younger. Both boys and girls wore hairbows, although we o not know how commonly. The boys in the photograph almost certainly wore dresses all the time. The dresses they wear in the photograph are probably their best party dresses, but all their other outfits would have also been dresses, plainer ones for play and everyday wear. The probably also had smocks and pinafores. As Madame de Lesseps appears to have sometimes chosen identical frocks for the younger children, it seems reasonable to believe that they were all sometimes dressed in identical smocks. Perhaps even the younger boys in knee pants might wear smocks like their younger brothers. I have, however, no actual information or photgraphs to confirm this. Also I have no information on schooling. Presumably the boys would not have been sent off to school in dresses, even though French school children wore smocks. DeLesseps was wealthy enough that the children were probably schooled at home.

Figure 3.--Renoir painted his son Jean when the boy was about 5 or 6 years old in 1900.

Renoir

The French impresionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is one of the most prominent artists of our era. He was born in Limoges. I'm not sure how he was dressed as a boy and do not yet have details on his boyhood. Renoir was apprenticed at the age of 13 in 1854 to work as a painter in a Paris porcelain factory. It was there he gained experience with the light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work. It was at the factory that he learned the importance of good craftsmanship. Renoir had three sons which he especially loved to paint when they were young. He also painted other children. He painted Jean and Genevieve Caillebotte, the son and daughter of Martial Caillebotte (figure 2) in 1893. He painted his own sons on numerous occasions, such as the attached portrait of Jean Renoir at about 5-6 years of age (figure ?). Another Renoir painting shows his 7 year old son Jean holding a hoop, wearing a smock-like dress with lace collar and cuffs, and long curled hair tied with a white ribbon. Jean remarked in his autobiography that this picture, Jean posed as a little girl, was displayed prominently in their home for many year and caused him much embarrassment. Renoir loved to paint young girls and children and his sons made pretty and convenient models. After their long hair was cut, he never painted them again!

Unidentified Boy (c1910)

Unfortunately HBC has no information on this charming French portrait. We can thus only speculate about his clothing and hair style. This image looks to HBC very much like a portrait taken about when this boy was about to enter school. The clothes do not look dressy, but rather what a boy his age might have worn to school under a school smock. We rather believe that this looks like a portrait taken just before his hair was cut in preparation for his first day of school. Long hair was not unknown for school-age boys, but most boys had their long hair cut before beginning school. Haie bows were not worn to school. The rather plain clothes suggest that the noy did not come from a particularly wealthy family. The clothes look like styles that were worn in the early 20th century before World War I (1914-18). The boy looks to be about 6 years of age and about the age when boys began school.

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Created: June 1, 1999
Last updated: November 14, 2001