Researchers in the U.K. have uncovered the identity of an enslaved boy depicted in an early masterpiece by the 18th-century painter Joshua Reynolds . The 1748 oil on canvas presents a fair-haired Paul Henry Ourry in the finery of a Royal Navy lieutenant striking a stoic pose. A Black boy with a dazzling white turban and a pearl earring stands at Ourry’s clenched right-hand, looking up with perplexed interest. For centuries, the boy was known simply as “ Jersey ,” but information found in admiralty records and national archives has detailed his name and years of military service. What happened after he was discharged, however, remains unknown. As his baptismal certificate stated: “a certain Black boy called Boston Jersey baptised by the name of George Walker aged fifteen.” The baptism took place in a chapel in Westminster, London, on July 30, 1752, which would have made him roughly 11 years old in the Reynolds painting.…