European Family Portrait, Formal Garden, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

European Family Portrait, Formal Garden, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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European Family Portrait, Formal Garden, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-C27A35

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A family has stopped in the grounds of what appears to be a substantial continental European villa — the ochre rendered facade, ivy-clad pilasters, and precisely clipped conical topiary placing this squarely in the Italian or French provincial tradition of Sunday excursions to somewhere grander than home. The mother has dressed in a coordinated skirt-suit with the kind of quiet seriousness that the 1950s demanded of respectable women in public, and she is carrying both a structured handbag and a wicker basket, because a well-organised woman never assumes the venue will provide. The father's hand rests on his son's shoulder with the proprietary calm of a man who considers this moment to be going extremely well. The boy is wearing shorts and a pullover, the universal 1950s European solution to the question of what a child should wear when his parents have dressed up, his comfort sacrificed only partially to the occasion. Someone behind the camera has asked them to stand still and smile, and all three have interpreted 'smile' as 'look at the camera with dignity', which was the correct interpretation for the decade.

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