Toddler with Tooled-Leather Handbag, Suburban Front Walk, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Toddler with Tooled-Leather Handbag, Suburban Front Walk, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Toddler with Tooled-Leather Handbag, Suburban Front Walk, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1953–1959

AA-2026-37145B

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Sometime in the 1950s, a toddler of perhaps two years old came to the firm conclusion that she was ready to go somewhere, and the tooled-leather shoulder bag — a grown woman's bag, worn cross-body and reaching nearly to her knees — was the evidence she needed to prove it. The bag is genuine Western-style leatherwork, the kind that in this decade occupied a serious cultural position between souvenir and fashion statement, and it has clearly been borrowed from someone who did not yet know it was borrowed. She is mid-stride down the concrete front walk of a tidy brick ranch house, the manicured lawn announcing that whoever mows it takes the job personally, while two adults stand talking near the front door with the total indifference of people who have not yet noticed what is leaving. The whole scene is a minor drama of unilateral departure that the adults in the background will piece together only when they look up. She has the expression of someone who knows exactly where she is going, which at this age means she does not.

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