Story of enslaved boy featured in 1748 Joshua Reynolds portrait emerges in new study

Steven Morris, The Guardian

Until now nothing was known about ‘Jersey’, depicted with naval officer, but research raises hopes he may have won freedom

For hundreds of years, he was known only as “Jersey”, an enslaved boy of about 11 rendered in oil on canvas by the great 18th-century portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.

But now the life of the youngster, believed to be Reynolds’ earliest depiction of a person of colour, has begun to emerge, thanks to a research project.

Details found in admiralty records and other archives have unearthed information about Jersey’s identity, his military service and even hint he may eventually have found freedom.

The painting, thought to have been completed around 1748, shows the boy and his “master”, the naval officer and MP Paul Henry Ourry. While Ourry looks out into the distance authoritatively, the enslaved child gazes up at the officer tentatively.

It was hung in the saloon at Saltram, a National Trust Georgian mansion, in Plympton, Devon, its title: Lieutenant, later Captain, Paul Henry Ourry, MP (1719-1783) with an enslaved child known as “Jersey” (dates unknown).

Though the painting is considered an early Reynolds masterpiece and there was plenty of information about Ourry, almost nothing was known about the child.

As part of an effort to highlight people whose voices and stories have been ignored or lost, the research project was launched by the National Trust, the National Gallery in London, and Royal Museums Greenwich, to try to find out more about Jersey.

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Scouring admiralty records, letters, muster books (ships’ registers) and captains’ logs, Brayshay and Katherine Gazzard, a curator at Royal Museums Greenwich, found him named as “Boston Jersey” on ships that Ourry was attached to.

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