French Family – 1847

French family around the piano forte, 1847

A young women is seated at the piano forte, while her mother looks on, and a younger girl plays with her puppy in the parlor. Sitting in a purple chair, the young woman touches the open musics score, while she begins to play. She wears a white underskirt with a pale pink dress trimmed with darker pink bows. Her white underskirt has a tier just below knee level, with a ruffle at the join. The pink dress is open at the front of the skirt to show the white, and is edged with a wide band of white ruching.

The pink bodice has a deep curved peplum over the hip, also edged in white ruching around the hem and up the center front. The sleeves are elbow length with more ruching at the hems, which are slightly flared. The bodice is fastened with three darker pink bows, the one at the waist with trailing ends. A white high necked blouse is visible under the pink. Her brown hair is center parted with face-framing ringlets, and she wears a gold bangle bracelet on her right arm as she points to a passage in her sheet music. Her mother leans over the back of the chair to look at the score.

The mother wears a green dress with a triple tiered skirt, with each tier trimmed with a narrow fringe. A fabric is patterned of slightly darker green vertical bands of alternating vegetal scrolls and zigzag stripes. Over the bodice, which must be short sleeved, as her arms are bare, is a white fichu bordered with narrow ruffles fastened at the front with a wide, medium hued orange ribbon. The fichu crosses at the back, and the ends can be seen at the back of her skirt. Her green basket-weave cap is trimmed with ruched orange ribbon, a white ruffle, and a orange ribbon rosette at the side.

Orange ribbon ties hang loose. The youngest girl in front of the chair wears a short light blue dress, in a muted Tattersall gray plaid. Two bias panels radiate from the center front in a v down the skirt. She has short white tucked sleeves below blue cap sleeves, over a white higher necked blouse. She wears white gloves, black shoes with light blue gaiters, and a straw colored bonnet fastened under her chin with a blue ribbon. She smiles as she lifts a small dog into her arms.

The parlor is lightly sketched with shelves full of books, a lamp, heavy draperies and a fireplace with scrolled detail.

Credit: The Claremont Colleges