tintype photograph

Summary

Full length portrait of a woman and two boys, aged about five and seven years old. The woman is seated. She has dark centrally parted hair, drawn severely back from her face. She wears a black dress with a broad band along the bottom, and a narrower gathered band attached at knee level; and another ruffled broad band around the neckline She wears a large black bow pinned at the neck over a white blouse. Round the neck she has a short black ribbon with an anchorshaped pendant. She has a long string of black beads emerging from the black bow. Her left arm is resting on the padded back of a chair from which hang many thick tassels. The boys are identically dressed. One stands on the woman's left, leaning his right arm on the chair back; the other, on the woman's right, leans against her lap. The boys have short scruffily cut hair. They wear knee length shorts, and waist length jackets buttoning up the front, with a breast pocket from which a white handkerchief shows. They wear white collars, with black necktie, and a sailor type collar over the jacket of a matching material. The sailor collar is tied with a dark ribon below the neck tie. Both wear socks and boots.