Hold Your Breeches

In 1850, the average American family size included six to nine children. Boys in the early to mid-19th century wore dresses handed down from sisters, typically termed frocks, and these frocks were worn without either short or long pants underneath until a boy reached “breeching” age. What is breeching age? It is when a young boy can hold his own and not soil his breeches. If you have had both male and female children, you’ll know that boys can be harder to potty train, thus, “breeching” was a term used to describe the proper time when a young boy was allowed to wear breeches under a tunic. Younger toddlers in the 19th century did not wear gowns as they impaired freedom of movement, they wore tunic dresses, and diapers.

In many collections of American portraits of young children from the 1830-70s we ‘moderns’ cannot distinguish the genders of the sitters. SC sends me a little portrait of a child in a tartan dress: a case in point. SC has named her “Biddy’s Girl,” when in fact many elements point to her being SC’s “Biddy’s Boy;” I can date the portrait and the gender by the clothing style. The little chap wears pantalettes, not knee pants or knickers. This was the fashion for both sexes until 1870 when a “breeched” boy wore a knee pant. By the 1870s boys often wore a stylized jacket and waistcoat over a skirt that was not a kilt, but a skirt
with box pleats. 

Hair styles were also unisex. Boys often had long hair pulled back with a small bow; later in the 19th century girls wore larger bows. The fabrics used were unisex. Both young boys and girls wore wool, fastened with hooks and eyes or buttons at the back. Not until each of the sexes were at least seven years old was the garment different for the genders, until the publication of the book, Little Lord Fauntleroy, which made European ringlets and velvet long trousered suits popular for young boys in the 1880s. 

Originating in Britain, tartan was worn from 1850-70 by both genders, but due to the popularity of sailor suits in Germany (1860-70) and Highland wear in England (kilt suits), boys were dressed in sailor collars and tartan tunics, and sailor or Highland tunics for both sexes were worn until a child’s ninth year with either pantalettes or tights underneath, preferably striped tights. The traditional Highland kilt was transformed into an American jacket and skirt in tartan for boys. By the 1880s large collars for boys with knee pants were in vogue, with large floppy bows at the collar. Still, up until the age of eight, a young boy wore what we now think of as a dress, in either cotton or wool, with bows.

The owner of this little “Biddy Boy” portrait would like to know the artist, and if the artist sells for much, and if he or she was an important Americana artist, which is not really the focal point of this little work, which is not all that well painted. The signature is almost indecipherable; it appears to be A. R. Cu… or R.A. Cl… However, the artist of such a work, in this case, is not as important as the quality and style of child’s portraiture; this style was called a “genre” painting when the 19th century viewer could identify the child’s nationality and class. Although we cannot “see” the gender, nor easily identify the class or nationality clues today, this Biddy Boy child wears a finely made tartan dress, the child holds a little concertina, and he has played with a ball (painting, dated 1869). The furniture in the painting is Renaissance Revival (purchased only by the affluent) and the carpet is “Turkey” work (imported by the rich). The child’s face is not well-executed because the point of the painting is to place the child in his “class,” not to accurately portray the little boy.

I suspect the artist was Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the wife (to be) of General (Confederate) Robert E. Lee; she was an average painter of Virginian children, selling her works to benefit the Confederacy. This style of children’s portraiture was ubiquitous in this era. The frame is also late 1860s.The value, if by Custis Lee, is $1,000, and the flavor of the interior furnishings in decidedly Southern American dating from the mid-19th century and places the child in his status as a well-born Southern American gentrified child, likely a first-born son.