This is a portrait of an individual child, painted with personality and character. But his identity was lost after the painting was created in the early 1800s and before the museum acquired it in 1937 - as was that of the artist who made the picture. The young Black boy wears a fez, a type of hat widely adopted throughout the Ottoman Empire (about 1299 to 1922). However, without further evidence we cannot tell if he is an enslaved child abducted from East Africa or a free person. He may have lived in the Middle East or Britain.

The picture is unfinished and probably a sketch for a larger painting. The boy may have known the artist who painted him or agreed to sit for him in return for a fee. Although he is looking into the distance, the portrait gives the sense of a momentary personal connection between sitter and artist. But at some point the objectifying title A Child of the Orient was made up and attached to the picture - jarring with its sensitivity. We have changed the title.