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

Exclusive: 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.