Figure 1.--These boys wear a dress and a tunic. This unidentified American primitive shows the pantalettes worn by young children with tunics and dresses. Some like these were plain, others were much more fancy.

Two of the most important outfits of the early 19th century appear regularly in the work of the American primatives. After breeching, boys would be likely to wear these garments. Often the boys and girls are show wearing pantalettes.

Dresses

Younger American boys commonly wore dresses in the 17-19th centuries. This fashion began to decline in popularity during the late-19th century and disappeared in the early-20th century. Most of this period was brfore the invention of photography (1839). So for most of this period, what we have is paintings and drawings as a source of imagery. We do have photographic images for the final few decades. Often details on the subjects are lacking, often making it difficult to identify the younger subjects wearing dresses in primitive portraits. In many cases the subjects are boys, but it is often difficult to tell.

Tunics

The tunic was an important garment for European boys in the early 19th century. HBC has relatively few images showing boys in tunics. I believe that the tunic was also widely worn in America. Some available primitive portraits do indeed show American boys wore tunics, but I am not yet sure how widely worn they were.

Skeleton suits

American primitives confirm that the skeleton suit was the principal dressup garment worn by American boys after breeching. The collars could be quite large. This style persisted into the 1830s. The boys here wear open collars.

Figure 2.--The Cogdon brothers were painted by an anonymous American primitive artist about 1830. The painting shows that the skeleton suit and large ruffled collars were still being worn in the early 1830s. The style, however, went out of fashion in the 1830s.

Suits

Many anonymous portraits ober time provide a fascinating record of developing styles in boys suits as the style began to decline in the 1830s to the appearance of many mpdern styles at the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately many of these portraits are undated, but many are whicj help to date the process. They provide glimses of suits wghen photography was stll developing as well as valuable color information.

Ties and bows

Many boys in the early 19th century wore open collar styles without neckwear. As the decade progressed various types of neckwear appeared. Boys tende to wear raelative small ties and bows, the large bows are a late 19th century style not seen in the first half of the century.

Pantalettes

Pantalettes were widely worn by girls and younger boys in the darly 19th century. American primitive portraits show them worn with dresses, tunics, and even skeleton suits. The pantalettes worn by younger boys and girls might be identical, but older boys would generally wear plainer ones.

Figure 3.--This American boy may have been painted in the Ohio Valley. He is holding a flute, suggesting it was important to either him or his mother. Note the collar and hair style.

Collars

The boys painted in these naive portraits wore a wide variety of collars. Some were plain small collars and other boys might gave large ruffled collars. There were both open and closed-neck collars. On some cose up portraits, the collar is often the only clearly drawn clothing element.

Hair Styles

Naive portraits provide a great deal of valuable information on hair styles. While early 19th clothing is often described in detail in a variety of publication and letters, there is much less information about hair styles. Short hair seems the dominant style, sometimes shorter than a boy's father. There are, however, some examples of boys with longer hair. We see few portraits of boys with ringlets, perhaps because by tghe time that ringlets had become fashionable for boys photograph had supplanted the once florishing trade of unschooled primitive/naive artists.

Figure 1.--This American boy was probably painted in the 1820s or perhaps 30s. We do not know who nhe is or whopainted him.

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Created: March 2, 2002
Last updated: 6:12 PM 5/26/2011