The Black Boy is an 1844 painting by William Lindsay Windus in the collection of the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, England.[1]
The painting is an oil on canvas painting measuring 76.1 x 63.5cm and depicts a black child looking at the viewer.[2] He is wearing torn clothing.[1] It is the only portrait painting depicting an individual black child in the collection of the National Museums Liverpool.[1] There are believed to be fewer than 10 individual portraits depicting a single Black figure from the mid 19th-century in British national collections.[1]
An X-ray analysis of the painting revealed that four or five other faces were painted by Windus on the canvas before their erasure.[1] An 1891 catalogue listing described the boy as having been a stowaway that Windus had met on the steps of Liverpool's Monument Hotel on the London Road.[1] The listing further described how a passing sailor had seen Windus's completed portrait in a frame maker's shop and reunited the child with his family.[1] The story is believed to have been invented to make it more appealing to wealthy buyers who would have taken pity on the subject.[1]
In 2024 the museum made a public appeal for more information about the child subject.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i Ferguson, Donna (21 March 2024). "Liverpool museum appeals for information on subject of The Black Boy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 March 2024. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
- ^ "William Windus (1822-1907)". National Museums Liverpool. Archived from the original on 17 May 2022. Retrieved 21 March 2024.