« Boy With Shovel And Pail »

How's that for a creative title – worked hard coming up with that one. At least I assume it is a boy considering that they were often in skirts up to the age of five well into the 20th century (my father was born in 1911 and his early photos show him in skirts).

This photo by Horner, 48 Winter Street, Boston, Massachusetts, may be 1880s. Horner bills himself as The Photographer from Stockholm, Sweden – what cachet that brings I have no idea; does the photo look Swedish to you, do photographers from Stockholm have a recognizable photographic style? He also offers Pastels, Crayons, Water Colors and India Ink – I will assume that he sells these supplies at his establishment and that he doesn't mean that he is also an artist (the back of his card is shown below).

The child wears a wool tartan skirt with more buttons than are needed for utility, a jacket trimmed with lace collar and cuffs. He holds a small wooden pail and an odd little spade that would serve no useful purpose except at the beach; do you suppose he brought these items or did the photographer have a stash of toys that his young clients may choose from (that could be risky because they might decide they want to take them home)?

Most studios of the period had semi-architectural and garden-related props that ranged from the bizarre to the merely absurd and rarely sublime, most of them constructed from flimsy cards or hollow plaster stucco meant to be light and portable and looking like nothing more than the shabby fakes they were. It occurs to you to wonder what the useful life of a prop would be and how many choices you would typically offer to your clientele – surely Miss Miniver is not about to have her portrait taken in the same environ as her rival acquaintance, and Mrs. Bolliver is not going to consider the same background she stood before year before last! One would hope that people chose their photographer for ability and not for an up-to-date selection of the latest in props, but I miss my guess if our ancestors were any less fickle than we are today.

If you want a subject that every publisher is dying to add to their book list, you might research and author The Designers, Manufacturers & Distributors of Photographic Studio Paraphernalia, 1870 – 1920 (complete and unabridged in three volumes) for the clamoring public. Somebody like me – and one or two others – would probably buy it. Wait, let me check Books in Print, someone may already have done it!