Featured Woman... or man?

This cabinet card was advertised as a woman, but I'm not so sure. What do you think?

 

Man I would think looking at the adams apple.

 

Ditto. The face too, the brow especially.

 

That's a man. Without question. No woman in that era would have cropped hair, a style that wasn't introduced into fashion until the 1920s when hemlines rose.

Debora

 

The photographer appears to have been active in the 1880s/90s. Would this fit with the fashion, does anyone know?

 

The fashion is quite similar to this 1882 portrait of Oscar Wilde -


https://loc.getarchive.net/media/oscar-wilde-sarony-9

 

Ohh yes, thank you! I love that photo.

 

Yes, a little bit of the aesthete about him. Like Wilde or Robert Louis Stevenson, here in 1887.

Debora

 

Advertised by whom? Who said this is a woman?

 

Someone whose eyes didn't work.

 

One would think the shirt, tie and vest could provide a clue.

Debora

 

I think they saw the fur collar.

 

I love him ! Id call him Snoddy Mc Snodgrass !

 

Male jaw line too. Nothing feminine apart from the lips perhaps and hair

 

I hope you took it easy on your own kids

 

Normally I don't get into discussions of genders of people in old photos. However, in this case -- definitely a man.

 

Thanks everyone, you’ve provided some humour and confirmed what I thought, that the portrait is in fact of a man (though he may have thought of himself otherwise, there’s no way of knowing!).

@ola402, I bought the cabinet card on eBay which described the person as a woman, presumably due to the fur collar as @evelyb30 suggests. And maybe the jewel? It came with a second image of a small boy, so perhaps the seller also thought it was mother and son. But now I’m wondering if the boy is the same person. Sadly no name on either of them.

 

It was the fashion in the Aesthetic Movement of the 1880s for men to wear soft collars instead of heavy starched ones. Your young man is making a definite fashion statement.

Debora

 

Thanks @Debora, I obviously need to do more reading/research. Good for him, I like the fashion!

Here's the accompanying cabinet card. The earliest reference I can see to the photographer is 1870, so it could theoretically be the same person. The back of the card is blank. The little sailor suit is too cute.

 

Just sat down for a beverage in a local bar and looked up. How bizarre.