Two Little Girls in Fur-Trimmed Coats 1900

Kate Greenaway made this watercolor of two young girls in coats sometime in the late 19th century. Greenaway gained fame for her illustrations of children, particularly girls, in a deliberately old-fashioned style. But what made the children of the past so appealing to Greenaway's Victorian audience? Here, the fur-trimmed coats signal the girls' bourgeois status, at a time when economic inequality was hard to ignore. Their bonnets and long dresses situate them in a past, perhaps the Georgian era, remembered as a time of slower change, before industrialization dramatically changed English society. This image suggests an alternative to modern life, one focused on childhood innocence and a slower pace. The appeal to nostalgia reveals a desire for a society that perhaps never truly existed. Art historians consult visual culture, literature, and social histories to explore the meaning of such images as historical artifacts.