Two Little Girls in Fur-Trimmed Coats

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.