manner of Sir Joshua Reynolds

This portrait is now thought to be Francis Barber, born Quashey (c.1742-1801). Barber was born into slavery in Jamaica, on a sugarcane plantation belonging to the British Bathurst family. He was brought to England aged 15, by his enslaver Colonel Richard Bathurst. In 1755, when Bathurst died, Barber was freed. He later went to work for English writer Samuel Johnson. This picture is one of many student copies of a painting by Joshua Reynolds. Previous titles, including A Young Black, may suggest that as a Black man, Barber was being treated as an artistic subject, rather than as an individual.