An oil painting by Joshua Reynolds features a named naval officer and a Black child whose life story was unknown until researchers searched through captains’ logs, letters and admiralty records Baptism records identifying the boy National Archives For centuries, the portrait of Paul Henry Ourry, an 18th-century parliament member and lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, held a mystery. The oil painting, displayed in the saloon of Saltram , a Georgian mansion in Plymouth, depicts a second figure whose real identity was unknown: a Black child, wearing a white turban and pearl earring. Who this boy, known simply as “Jersey,” may have been was a subject of intrigue for art historians. Perhaps, some thought, the boy may not have actually existed. Portraits from the 1700s of wealthy white elites sometimes included people of color to highlight the primary sitter’s status in society. It was not uncommon for painters to imagine these people on the canvas, rather than base their likenesses on a specific individual.…