Figure 1.--This German cabinent portrait is undated, but looks like the 1880s or ealy 90s to us. It was taken in Bad Ems. I believe this was a spa resort, so the unidentified boy here may have been a visitor. He wears a velvet tunic with knee pants. Notice the smocking on the yunic. There is a narrow belt and pom-poms, an unusual feature. The tunic has Fauntleroy trim--lace collars and cuffs. There were also matching knee pants. I'm not sure what color it was, pperhaps a dark color other than black. His hat sets to the right.

The tunic was essentially a very simple garment which was one of its advantages and while it persisted for such a long time as a boys' garment. While pratical, it could also be worn when dressing up. We are not sure how popular tunics were in Germany during the 1880s. We do see portraits of boys wearing them, but we can not yet reasonably assess the relative popularity. Our photographic archive is fairly limited. The 1880s was when the Fauntleroy craze appeared after the publication of her book, Little Lord Fauntleroy. We thus see some German boys wearing tunics with Fauntleroy touches and trim. We are not sure yet how common this was. A reader writes, "Since Germany was very stratified in its society then, I would assume this is a child from a wealthy household." Perhaps. But you know the Fauntleroy style began as an upper-class style in America, but was copied by the middle class. We see far fewer boys wearing Fauntleroy outfits in Germany, so perhsaps this did not happen, but our archive of 19th century images is still to small for us to draw any firm conclusions. Another reader writes, "I recall on another HBC page in the German personal experiences section that someone wrote that the wealthy boy in town wore a velvet suit."