Dating photos of Roger and Isabella Bolton

I've started my third unit in the Diploma of Family History which is called Place, Image, Object. In today's class we learnt about using formal and contextual analysis to date photographs. We were encouraged to use these skills to date our own family history photographs. I chose the following two photographs to analyse.

 

 Formal Analysis

Two sepia coloured cabinet style studio photographs of a man and a woman, who are both standing slightly behind a chair. They both have a hand placed on the back of a chair as if to steady themselves. In both images the drapes are behind them on their left side. The back of the cards have high Victorian designs and are registered by ‘C,E & C.’

The man is dressed in a dark coloured three piece suit with a high waistcoat fully buttoned. The shirt collar is high and starched and the necktie is knotted. He is an older man with a receding hairline but he still has plenty of hair that is swept up and over to one side. He has a bushy beard and moustache that is greying. He has deep furrow lines and he prefers to not look directly into the camera.

The woman is dressed in a dark two pieced outfit. Made of a heavy fabric the skirt falls into a simple A-Line. The bodice is buttoned at the front and features a decorative cord embroidery that extends up and around the high neckline. The sleeves are a classic leg-of-mutton shape that are slim at the wrist and puffed out near the shoulder. Her hair is parted in the centre and pulled back tightly behind her ears. She has fine features with little evidence of obvious ageing, and she stares directly into the camera without smiling.

Contextual Analysis

My Nanna has written on the back of the photographs that these are her grandparents Roger and Isabella Bolton. Rodger Bolton was born in 1830 and his wife Isabella Bolton (nee Brown) was five years younger. They lived in Jedburgh, Scotland and their youngest child Lillias (Nanna’s mother) was born there in 1872. The photographs were taken at Charles Mitchell Studio, 149 Dumbarton Rd, Glasgow (on rear of photo) and the Bolton family were living in Glasgow in both the 1881 and 1891 Census.

Charles Mitchell Photographer occupied premises at 149 Dumbarton, Glasgow from 1891-1905. The style of these two cards is consistent with those being produced about 1894-95 (www.thelows.madasafish.com/cards/mitchell_queens.htm). The leg-of-mutton shape of sleeves that Isabella is wearing, started to become popular by about 1893 (www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-fashion-1840-1900/).

As Rodger was accidentally killed at work in August 1894 I am confidently dating the two photos as 1893/94. This means that Roger was about 63 and Isabella about 58 when they were photographed.