Figure 1.--The Paris portrait is comtempory with the De Lesseps' children so it may be a boy. This guess is based on the gender of the doll and on how the child is posed. I have noticed that standing poses with crossed legs is a very common pose for boys. Nopte that the child under the dress is wearing both a shift and pantalettes. I'm not sure if there are any gender assoiciated with the dress. A reader writes, "I wonder if the buttons down the front were a boy's style for dresses."

HBC does not yet know if special dresses were made for boys as was the case in America. We notice boys wearing dresses with short sleeves. Notice the portrait here of the Delesseps children (figure 1). HBC does not yet have access to 19th century French fashion ads which would indicate how children's clothes were advertized. The French images of boys wearing dresses so far look to us like dresses that girls might have worn. We note, for example, families with the boys and gils wearing the same dress styles. The Delesseps family is a case in point. We have not yet noted boys wearing dresses with specific boys' styling. The difficulty in identifying the gender in old photographs, especially wearing dresses complicates our ability to assess the tyles of dresses wirn by boys. The Paris portrait is comtempory with the De Lesseps' children so it may be a boy. This guess is based on the gender of the doll and on how the child is posed. I have noticed that standing poses with crossed legs is a very common pose for boys. Note that the child under the dress is wearing both a shift and pantalettes. I'm nor sure if there are any gender assoiciated with the dress.

Created: 5:08 AM 7/8/2004
Last updated: 5:19 PM 7/8/2004