Velvet, Lace, and Violins

There is something about lacework
that once made a fashion statement
that signified genteel qualities
and polished refinement.

Though usually an embellishment of female garments,
sometimes lace enhanced boys' clothing too.
 

Lace collars and cuffs
added a flourish of elegance
that implied cultivated class
to boy in a velvet jacket.
Even if his sleeves
were too short
or too long.

In olden times
young musicians,
for some reason violin players in particular,
often dressed in suits of fuzzy material
decorated with fine lacework.

Maybe it was suitable
for playing Mozart
but it was not the kind of uniform
a boy would wear to play baseball.

Today I present a collection of boys
dressed in velvet and lace
who made their mothers proud.

 

The first boy has a serious countenance as he stands on a photographer's studio stage. He wears a dark velvet suit with wide lace collar and cuffs. On his feet are a kind of slipper rather than sturdy  button top shoes. An anchor pin and bright ribbon at his neck adds a nautical theme. The boy holds a violin, a half-size one, I think, that would be suitable for a child of his small stature. Though he doesn't exude the confidence of a wunderkind, I think he still has the look of someone who knows how to play a violin and not merely hold a stage prop. 

The photography studio was  Hartley Bros. of 2 South Road, Waterloo in Liverpool, England. The back of the cabinet card advertises that the Hartley Brothers made a specialty in "Outdoor Photography" and offered "Instantaneous Portraits of Children". 

What attracted me to this card were two handwritten notations made on the back, probably a century apart. The first is along the side in black ink:

John Hollamon Harwood
taken on his sixth birthday
March 31/94

The second is in blue ballpoint ink along the top and bottom:

Happy 40th
Birthday
Chuck!
XXX   Bill

Chuck @ 6 yr in 1894

I generally don't approve of annotations on antique photos that are made by a modern hand, but in this case Bill's gift tag adds an amusing twist to this charming picture. Was Chuck a violinist? We will probably never know.

With a full name, date and location on the photo it seemed simple enough to track down little John Hollamon Harwood, but it proved to be a bit more challenging. First off the name John Harwood is moderately common. And British public records do not list middle names as regularly as American records. 

But with a little digging I found the name of John Harwood in the 1891 England census for Waterloo, Lancashire, a town just north of Liverpool on the River Mersey. Harwood, age 55, was a "Boot & Shoe Manufacturer". His household included his wife Mary Harwood and three sons, John, Edward,  and Francis, along with three female servants. Except for the boys, all were born in Ireland. The oldest son was John H. Harwood, age 3, which fit with the date on the photo. But the best clue was their address, 14 & 16 Bath St. It was only 400 ft. to the Hartley Bros. studio on 2 South Road. A distance that Google Maps suggests takes a 2 minute walk.

 

We can now imagine Mrs. Harwood leading little John up the street to the photographer's gallery. The boy tries not to step into any puddles and spoil his new slippers from his father's shop. And clutching a small violin case Mr. Harwood wonders how many prints he will order. Perhaps he should send one to his old friend Chuck.

The lacy suit that John Hollamon Harwood wears was a fashion derived from Little Lord Fauntleroy, a fictional character in a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849 – 1924), a British-American novelist and playwright.  The story was first published as a serial in St. Nicholas Magazine, a popular American children's monthly from November 1885 to October 1886. It then was released as a book in 1886 by Scribner's, the publisher of St. Nicholas Magazine, with illustrations by Reginald B. Birch. These drawings helped make Burnett's book a best seller and like J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books of our modern era, the gallant images of young Cedric Errol, the title character, created a craze for dressing boys in a Fauntleroy suit of velvet and lace trim. 

Elsie Leslie as Little Lord Fauntleroy (1888),
photograph by Napoleon Sarony, NYC
Source: Wikimedia

Curiously when the novel was adapted for the London stage in 1888, Cedric Earl was played by girl actor, Elsie Leslie (1881 – 1966). Photos of her in the role were reproduced and sold as souvenirs of the play. Interestingly Leslie also played the title role in a 1890 staging of Mark Twains' novel The Prince and the Pauper, a similar story of mixed-up kids and confused adults.

Over the past few years I have featured a number of boy violinists who wore a Fauntleroy suit for their portrait. These two boys from Chicago were in Boys Will Be Boys a recent story from October 2024. They are unidentified but I believe they were professional entertainers from the early 1890s.

And this trio of boys from Iowa are Sidney, Howard, and Percival, the Little Vernon Brothers who also dressed in velvet and lace as part of their traveling family band. The photo was taken in 1892 and in my story from July 2022 I have a longer section on how Little Lord Fauntleroy influenced fashion trends for boys in the last decades of the 19th century.  

As far as I know, Cedric Errol did not play a violin in Little Lord Fauntleroy. Yet as I have discovered from collecting old photos of child performers, after the sailor suit (Check out my story Three Boys in Sailor Suits) the velvet Fauntleroy suit with its lace collar and cuffs was the next most common concert costume for boy violinists. 

This boy posed in one at a photographer's studio in Boston, Massachusetts. Like John Harwood he has theatrical slippers, dark stockings, knee pants, and a jacket tricked out with shiny brass buttons and delicate lacework. He is older than the boy from Waterloo, having started that growth spurt that alarms mothers trying to keep their child in shoes, trousers and shirts that fit. At least lace is stretchy. 

The bottom of the cabinet card has the imprint of the  photographers' studio: Bushby, Macurdy, & Fritz of Temple Place in Boston. And just to the right is the printed name of the boy, Carl Peirce , a mark of a real entertainer's promotional photo. He was about eight years old when this was taken.  

10 December 1882 Boston Globe

In late November 1882, Carl Peirce made his first appearance in the amusement section of Boston's newspapers. Billed as "The child violinist whose wonderful execution at the age of eight years has won the admiration and astonishment of the best musicians and public generally" the notice announced his availability for concerts at "Lyceums, Churches, Lodges, and others..."  and included quotes from newspaper critics lavishing praise on Master Carl Peirce, a musical prodigy.

Carl Peirce was born on 10 January 1874 in Taunton, Massachusetts, about 35 miles south of Boston. He got his start on violin through his father, William P. Peirce, a druggist and also a talented violinist, who became his first manager. According to the notice Carl was studying with Signor (Leandro) Campanari, (1859 – 1939) an Italian violinist, conductor, and composer who came to Boston in 1881 when the Boston Symphony was first founded.  

16 March 1883 Boston Globe

The boy's first concerts were part of a larger concert company that included a pianist, four vocalists, and a clarinetist performing a varied program of high-culture music. Master Peirce's part consisted of playing solos like "Air et Varied" by Wieniawski, and "Gypsy Dance" by Paganini. This was music that would be challenging for a adult violinist and demonstrated a remarkable talent and skill for one so young.

16 October 1887 Boston Herald

Carl proved to be popular with Boston music patrons and for the next 8 years regularly performed a dozen concerts each season there. Most were presented as part of a larger concert troupe with his name receiving top billing. His father William P. Peirce acted as his manager and when Carl was older arranged for concerts in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In October 1887 Carl's portrait appeared in one Boston concert notice with a hair style and lace collar very similar to how he appears in my photograph. (The notice is incorrect that it was his "first appearance" in Boston.)

Of course no child prodigy stays young forever and inevitably grows up. After his father died in July 1895 at age 43, Carl Peirce seems to have set high goals that allowed him to continue pursuing a career in music. By his early twenties he was a reported as an active concert violinist in Boston and was now teaching music there, too. 

28 November 1902 Worcester MA Spy

In November 1902 Carl Peirce performed an unusual recital in Worcester, Massachusetts at the "warerooms" of music dealer M. Steinert & Sons. Carl was listed as the only performer but he was accompanied by an Aeolian Orchestrelle and a Pianolo. These were two types of self-playing keyboard instruments that could play music pneumatically triggered from data stored on perforated paper rolls. It was a very novel idea for its time and must have caused a small sensation for those who heard his concert.    

26 September 1903 Boston Herald

Around this time Carl was engaged to teach violin by the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In 1903 his name was listed as part of the string faculty which included Emil Mahr, Felix Winternitz, and Eugene Gruenberg. They were all members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra which Carl had also recently joined.  

1905 New England Conservatory yearbook,
THE NEUME

In 1905 The NEUME, the yearbook for the New England Conservatory published a long list of its faculty along with their photos. There was Carl Peirce, Violin dressed neatly with a concert white tie, but no lace. 

Carl Peirce taught violin at NEC for 40 years and in searching newspaper archive I found his name mentioned several times in the biographies of his successful former students. He died at his daughter's home in Newton, Massachusetts on 5 October 1960. He was 86. 

 

To finish I offer a short performance 
of Bach's Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004
performed by violinist Inmo Yang,
an Artist Diploma graduate from 2019
at the New England Conservatory. 
He studied with Miriam Fried
and performs on the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius violin
on loan from NEC.

I think Carl Peirce would have been very proud
to have had a student like Inmo Yang. 
Even if he doesn't wear a lace collar.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is outside
enjoying a garden tour.