Son of an E.I. purser

This charming miniature shows a mother and her two children holding a basket of fruit. It is inscribed in ink, ‘Son of an E.I. purser." E.I. stands for the East India Company. We can therefore assume that this miniature is of the wife of this purser and of his children.

It is possible that the portrait was painted to send out to him in India. The child on the right is a girl, but the one on the left is probably a boy. Since Tudor times, small boys from better-off families had been dressed in their early years in exactly the same dresses as girls, often until the age of six. The process of ‘breeching’, when the boy shed his petticoats, was a proud family occasion. By 1800, when this portrait was painted, boys usually graduated out of dresses at about four years old.

Via: V&A Museum