Dressing toddlers in the early modern

Puddings

One of the best images of a toddler age child in the seventeenth century is Rubens painting of himself and his wife, with their son. (Figure 1) Painted when Frans Rubens, born in 1633, was about two years old, it is typical of an upper-class toddler of the time. His mother is holding a leading string attached to the back of his clothes, and round his head, over his biggin (linen cap) is a “pudding,” a roll of fabric designed to cushion his head should he fall over. The use of these continued into the eighteenth century. John Thomas Smith, recalling his infancy in the 1760s, said that he wore a black pudding, writing “As to the antiquity of this cap, which is now seldom seen, and I believe totally unknown in the nurseries of the great, I can safely observe that the child of the great painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens wore one.” (1) Several eighteenth century pudding caps survive in museum collections, this link is to one in the Colonial Williamsburg collection.

Figure 1. Detail from Rubens with his wife and son. Met Museum

Leading strings and hanging sleeves

Hanging sleeves, which at times were not sleeves at all but sham strips of fabric that hung from the shoulders, were fashionable in the sixteenth century, and can be seen in the 1563 painting of Lady Katherine Grey with her young son. When they went out of fashion for adults they continued to be worn by small children, so that they could be used as leading strings.  You will however, sometimes see both hanging sleeves and leading strings on the same garment, as in Gesina ter Bosch’s 1649 watercolour, where the leading strings may come from the apron. A late 1650s painting by Pieter de Hooch in the Rijksmuseum, show a back view of a small girl with hanging sleeves (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Gesina ter Borch, Drie staande vrouwen en twee kinderen. Rijksmuseum

 

Coats and skirts

Small boys were kept in skirts until they were breeched, that is until they started wearing breeches, which was about the age of five. This painting, by Van Dyck, of the three eldest children of King Charles I, earned Van Dyck the King’s displeasure, because the future Charles II is shown still wearing skirts. (Figure 3) Van Dyck immediately painted a new version with Prince Charles in breeches. The three children in the painting are left to right, Prince Charles (b.1630), the Princess Mary (b.1631) and Prince James (b.1633). The painting was completed sometime in 1635, so the children would have been five, four and two.  Prince Charles appears to wear a floor length coat, which does up the front, his masculinity is implied by the row of ribbon points around his waist, which would have been used to hold up breeches were he wearing them. He wears a biggin or cap on his head, but his collar is the masculine style of wide band. Compare his appearance to that in the late 1635/early 1636 Van Dyck. In the later painting he is dressed in breeches, so the ribbon points have a purpose, and he no longer wears the childish cap on his head. In both paintings the Princess Mary wears an outfit very similar in style to that of an adult. In the later painting she has an apron over her skirts.

Figure 3. Three eldest Children of Charles I, by Van Dyck. Galleria Sabauda in Turin

 A rare survival of this type of gown is in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, though it does not appear in their online collection, it has a centre back closure. (Figure 4) (2 pp. 75-7) This style of gown was also worn by children of the lowest classes, though obviously in poorer fabrics, as can be seen on the small girl in the Le Nain painting of peasant children in the Burrell Collection. (Detail in Figure 5) In both the Van Dyck paintings the two year old Prince James wears a cap on his head, and is shown in skirts, with an apron over his skirt, and a doublet with hanging sleeves. That this is a same sort of thing that would be worn lower down the social scale, is shown in the probate account for clothing the son of John Hughes, in 1620 he received; “for a hatt and two capps for his forehead, for points … 21d, for dressing the long coates for him 14d, and for a yd and half of fustian for a dublett for him 2s 6d.” (3 p. 213)

Figure 4. Gown of Pfalzgrafin Maria Magdalena (1628-1629). Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

Aprons

Over their coats or gowns small children might wear an apron, as in figure 2, and Prince James in figure 3. Unlike adult aprons these might have a bib top above the waist, as can be seen clearly in the 1610 portrait of A child with a rattle at Temple Newsam House, that this is a boy is indicated by the feather in his cap, and the metal chain worn sash wise across. Another bibbed apron, though it might be a gown, is shown in the Le Nain painting (Figure 5), this time in green and worn by a peasant child, and note that she has her hand in her apron pocket.

 

 

Figure 5.  Detail from Le Nain Peasant children. Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Biggins or caps

Two surviving examples of these little linen caps that were worn by small children are in the Fashion Museum, Bath, and the Bowes Museum, they are examined in Patterns of Fashion 4, and a pattern is given. (4 p. 49 & 105) They were worn by boys until they were about two or three, and by girls for longer, except among the gentry and nobility as with Princess Mary. Buck quotes Endimion Porter, writing in 1623 to his wife about their son, “I would have you cut George his hair somewhat short..[and] let him go bareheaded”. (5 p. 73)

Hats

Boys in particular are often depicted wearing a hat, even though they are still in skirts, and they might even wear them over their cap, as in the painting of John Dunch (c. 1586 – 1589) and his nurse, Elizabeth Field.

Stockings

Stockings for children were like adult stockings, and because they wore out frequently formed 15% of clothing items purchased for children. (6 p. 34) When Edward Harpur died in 1650 leaving four young daughters, the first clothing listed in the probate account was three pairs of stockings, the account was closed fourteen years later when all the girls were of age or married. (7 p. 627)

Shoes

As with modern children there is a difference between soft infant shoes, as with a probably late seventeenth century example in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and harder shoes that are worn when children start walking. There is a pattern for a soft toddler shoe in the Tudor Child. (8 p. 149) The leather shoes are very much the same as adult shoes, and there is a survival in the Dorking Museum of a child’s shoe, that had been deliberately concealed in a chimney. John Hall, a Bristol shoemaker, had children’s shoes in stock in 1623 at 6d a pair, his adult shoes ranged from 1s 2d to 2s. (9)

Gloves

Children might well own gloves and mittens. In 1628 widow and glover Margaret Day had lots of children’s gloves in stock for as little as a penny ha’penny a pair. (9) There are two sixteenth century survivals of a small child’s mittens, in the Norfolk Museum collection and in the Museum of London. There is a pattern from the Norfolk mitten in the Tudor Child. (8 p. 148)

Underwear

Small children wear smocks and shirts of a similar pattern to that of adults. For those still in nappies, the term used at the time was clouts or tailclouts. Clouts are mentioned for swaddled babies, though they don’t appear to be mentioned for children who are walking. The comment from Jane Sharp is to, “shift the child’s clouts often for the piss and dung.” (10)

 

This post covers toddler clothing. I did a post on babies clothing five or six years ago. http://costumehistorian.blogspot.com/2018/06/baby-clothes-common-and-elite-written.html

 

References

1. Smith, John Thomas. Nollekins and his times. London : Henry Colburn, 1829.

2. Stolleis, Karen. Die Gewander aus der Lauinger Furstengruft. Munich : Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1977.

3. Brinkworth E.R.C. and Gibson, J.S.W. eds. Banbury wills and inventories. Pt.1, 1591-1620. Banbury Historical Society. 1985, Vol. 13.

4. Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion 4. London : Macmillan, 2008.

5. Buck, Anne. Clothes and the child. Bedford : Ruth Bean, 1996.

6. Spufford, Margaret and Mee, Susan. The Clothing of the Common Sort 1570-1700. Oxford : OUP, 2017.

7. Phillips, C. B. and Smith, J H. Stockport Probate Records 1620-1650. Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. 1992, Vol. 131.

8. Huggett, Jane and Mikhaila, Ninya. The Tudor Child: clothing and culture 1485-1625. Lightwater : Fat Gose Press, 2013.

9. George, E. and S. eds. Bristol probate inventories, Part 1: 1542-1650. Bristol Records Society publication. 2002, Vol. 54.

10. Sharp, Jane. The midwives book. Or the whole art of midwifery discovered. London : S. Miller, 1671.