Figure 1.--This English boy has a top roll with shoulder-length ringlets. Mother has created a partixularly large top roll. The number of ringlets are limited by the hair used for the roll. Unfortunately we do not know the boy's name, but he looks to be about 9-9 years old, He is one of the older boys we have seen with this hair style. We thought the sailor suit suggested the 1880s. The dealer estimated the 1880s, if so we would estimate the portraut was taken eraly in the decade. He was photographed with a whip. The CDV portrait was taken by C & R Lavis. Eastbourne.

We are stil working on the chronologic trends for the top curls. The top roll hair styles seem to have been most common in Britain during the late-19th century, we would say during the 1860s though the80s. So far most of out British images date from that period. The limited number of British images in our archive, however, makes it difficult to date in Britain. We are not sure when the style first appeared. And as photograph only apperared in the 1840s and we have few British Dags and Ambros, we are not sure about the early-19th century. Only with the appearance of CDVs do we have any significant photographic information from Britain. We no longer commonly see this style in either Britain and America after the very early-20th century. Unfortunately we can not use school portrits to follow trends here. Not only was this a style primarily for pre-school boys, but the older boys with these top-curls probably were tutored at hime.

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Created: 5:18 AM 1/27/2014
Last edited: 7:03 AM 2/22/2016