Figure 1.--his is another German photo on heavy card, but smaller than a Carte de Visite. It is unidentified and undated but I would guess 1910s at least. The doll he is holding seems to be a boy' doll. This boy has not only been breached, but has what looks like a shaved head. mage courtest of the MD collection.

HBC is somewhat surprised that several of the available images of boys playing with dolls are German images. We are not sure that this is a reflection that doll playing was more common for boys in Germany. The number of images availavle is very small. Thus we do not believe thisrepresents a valid sampling of European images. We in fact do not have large numbers of French and Italian images. As in other countries, there are images of German boys both before and after breaching, playing with dolls.

German Boys (1905-14)

This postcard photo is unidentified. but we know it is from Germany. The image is undated and as it is a postacard rather than a cabinent card, the location of where the photo was taken is not indicated. The postcard format, however suggests the early 1900s, probably sometime agter 1905 and before World War I (1914-18). I think they are both boys but cannot be sure, they look to be the same age, but one boy has not yet been breached. He wears a plaid tunic with a pen-on lace collar. One is wearing a dress and one a sailor suit. They look to be about 2-3 years old. We think that these boys might be friends or cousins rather than brothers because of the difference in their clothes. One boy has a girl doll with ringlers. The other holds a toy. We wonder how these two boys looked on each other's toy.

German Boy (1910s)

This is another German photo on heavy card, but smaller than a Carte de Visite (figure 1). It is unidentified and undated but I would guess 1910s at least. The doll he is holding seems to be a boy' doll. This boy has not only been breached, but has what looks like a shaved head.

Created: January 24, 2003
Last updated: January 24, 2003