unfortunately, as I have said before, children, toddlers and young babies can, at times, be very difficult to date and even more difficult to say whether it is a boy or girl, and to me this is the case here. firstly the dating aspect is made more difficult due to the fact that the white pinafore that the child is wearing hides all the detail of the garment underneath. The only thing that I can say about the child's outfit is that it appears to have been made from a veleteen material to give it that "sheen" and that the stockings underneath would have been full length. The shoe's that the child is wearing have a double strap, single buttoning fastening to them and are open to the top (similar to Clarke shoes than many remember from their own childhoods). The toy that the child is standing next to was more than likely a studio prop rather than the child's own toy and would have been used in the photograph to a) fill the frame so that the child did not just stand in an empty space, and b) to give the study a more "natural" look as though the child had only just stopped playing with the toy to have its photograph taken. The toy it self would be a "pull along" and would have either been a single standing toy or would have had a vehicle attached by shaft's that one would attach by a small strap or chain to the horse's body. The toy it self could date from anywhere from about 1880 to well into the 1910's. Which brings me on to my guesstimate of a date. Photograph wise, I would suggest a date line of somewhere between 1900 and 1910. As for the sex of the child there is really no way of being 100% sure about this but with the evidence of a horse as a toy I would have first thought that it might be a boy (would not a girl have been given a doll to pacify her to stand still?).
old rowley
