Boy's breeches
Swears and Wells
Category
Costume
Date
1900
Materials
Velvet, Silk
Order this imageCollection
Castle Drogo, Devon
NT 904130.2
Caption
Adrian Drewe (1891–1917) gazes out of his portrait by Louisa Starr Canziani (opposite) with the patient appearance of a child who has been interrupted from self-absorbed play. With his hair falling to his shoulders above a shirt with a wide collar and ruffle, his two-piece blue velvet suit and his white horn show that he is dressed as Little Boy Blue from the popular nursery rhyme: Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn / The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn / But where is the boy who looks after the sheep? / He’s under a haystack, fast asleep. While the rhyme is thought to have its origins in Shakespeare’s King Lear, the costume is likely to have been inspired by the popularity of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 Portrait of a Young Gentleman, popularly known as ‘The Blue Boy’ – the painting itself informed by 17th-century fashion. Part of a generation that would go on to serve in the First World War, Major Adrian Drewe was killed in action in Belgium on 12 July 1917. The Drewe family dedicated a room at Castle Drogo to his memory. Emma Slocombe
Summary
Boy's breeches, one part of a suit of dark blue velvet in the style of Little Boy Blue from the popular nursery rhyme 'Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn'. Adrian Drewe was painted wearing this suit in a 1900 portrait by Louisa Starr Canziani (1845–1909) at Castle Drogo, Devon (NT 903814).
Provenance
Given to the National Trust in 1991 by Anthony Drewe. This item forms part of the original Drewe family collection.
Marks and inscriptions
n
Makers and roles
Swears and Wells, manufacturer
References
Antrobus and Slocombe 2025: Helen Antrobus and Emma Slocombe, 100 Things to Wear: Fashion from the collections of the National Trust, National Trust 2025, pp. 142-143.