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This cabinet card has no studio name or place. It shows four unidentified brothers, three wearing identical dreses. The boys look to be about 1-7 years old. The boys wearing dresses look to be about 1-5 years of age. This would mean that the boys wore dresses until about 6 years of age. The portrait is undated, but we suspect was taken in the 1870s, although large collars were more common in the 80s. The backdrop has the look of a 1870s scene to us, but the 1880s is certainly possible. A reader writes, "The jacket of the oldest boy is an 1880s style." Here you have to look closely, but the verical pleets on collar-buttoning jackets certainly are a 1880s style. But notice this is a cut-away jacket. Cut-away jackets were much more common in the 1870s than the 80s. (An exception was the Fauntleroy suit.)
Our reader adds, "To me this looks not like a cut away jacket but just a jacket not buttoned properly. In my opinion this is clearly an 1880s picture. Also the collars of the boys in dresses underline this."
I wondered about if this was a cut-away jacket or an unbuttoned regulae jackedt. But in looking at it I decided there was not enough loose fabric to pull together and button or it wsould be very tight, but I am not at all sure. It does seem strange that mother or the photographer would allow a boy to be pictured with his jacket unbuttoned unless it was sone intentionally. If so, as cut-away jackets were worn in the 1870s, that would duggest gto us if this is a 18880s portraits tht it comes from the erly-80s. But as our reader points out, the large collars the younger boys wear are a 80s styles, especially the late-80s. Here we are talking about boys' clothes, we are less sure about dresses and girls clothes.
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