2 Photos for dating

[steensb]

I think that they look like different but related people.  My friend that shared the pic with me thought that they might be the same, so I asked.  Since I can be mistaken as often as anyone, I welcome other opinions.

I've been looking at the photos on full screen.  I'm afraid I use my tablet mainly for games.

Christine

[IgorStrav]

Just come to this one, what an amazing hairdo.

I can't see it as simple in construction as Prue does, the white "stripes" effect on the head don't look like partings (as you'd get with the cornrow style hairdos you can have now), and the hair in between doesn't look plaited.  It is the scalp you can see, is it?  I can't understand how it's done at all.

Wig over bare scalp?

[Wiggy]

I think they really are plaits 

- but how the change in colour has been achieved -     

Not a parting as sometimes there seem to be two rows - also on enlargement I reckon I can see the twists - or are my eyes deceiving me??   

plaited ribbons maybe??

Whatever,    it is one amazing creation!

Wiggy   

[Frankyfarrell]

I would say the first photo dates from about 1876 -1880 based on the hair style and the neckline. The second photo is very hard to date without anything else to see such as the paper etc. The neckline is not typical of 1870s necessarily and the hairstyle could stylistically relate to the early 1880s.

In the 1870s it was very common and fashionable for women to wear false hair to pad out their own to create large, elaborate styles which tended to be more grandiose than what we have here which although unusual is not large in terms of hair required.

The false hair was often imported from the Balkans where girls entering nunneries would have their hair shaved off before taking the veil

[chinakay]

Even though they are pixellated, in Wiggy's blowup the strands look like yarn.

[IgorStrav]

Oh, thanks for the blow up, Wiggy, that makes it a little clearer......goodness gracious me.   

[PrueM]

OK, I concede - it's a more complicated 'do than I thought