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Topics

Children's costume

  • Summary
Orphan Girls in the Refectory of a Hospital, Proceeding to Their Place at the Table
Image credit: Wellcome Collection

Orphan Girls in the Refectory of a Hospital, Proceeding to Their Place at the Table

Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862–1927)

Wellcome Collection

Paintings and sculpture are a fascinating record of changes in children’s dress and fashions, Swaddling, for example, believed to help straighten the limbs of infants, was common until the eighteenth century and very young boys and girls were not always dressed differently until the twentieth century.


So until the late eighteenth century, boys were dressed like men in breeches, vests and coats when they began to behave maturely between four and seven.

Read more
From the 1860s, the rite of passage became the move from short to long trousers. Before the twentieth century, girls and women both wore dresses and skirts all their lives, skirt length increasing with age. Dated paintings are thus useful evidence of changing fashions and fashions can help date paintings.

Artworks

  • Orphan Girls in the Refectory of a Hospital, Proceeding to Their Place at the Table
    Orphan Girls in the Refectory of a Hospital, Proceeding to Their Place at the Table Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862–1927)
    Wellcome Collection
  • A London Crossing Sweeper and Flower Girl
    A London Crossing Sweeper and Flower Girl Augustus Edwin Mulready (1844–1905)
    Museum of London
  • Three Children
    Three Children George Elgar Hicks (1824–1914)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Baby and Child Playing
    Baby and Child Playing George Elgar Hicks (1824–1914)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Young Children
    Young Children Thomas Barker (1769–1847)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Girl with Two Hounds
    Girl with Two Hounds John Emms (1843–1912)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Boy with Cricket Bat
    Boy with Cricket Bat British School
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • 1,198 more

Stories

  • A rare survival from the Tudor period: 'Cornelia Burch, Aged Two Months'

    Sonia Roe

  • Swaddles, corsets and breeches: a brief history of childrenswear

    Katy Canales

  • Breastfeeding in art: Ernst Neuschul's 'Black Mother'

    Sarah Levitt

  • Children in seventeenth-century Dutch art: Portrait of a Girl, Aged One, with a Basket of Strawberries

    Alice Soulieux-Evans


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® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).