This portrait depicts a young Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was born in London in 1875 to a white British mother and a Krio father from Sierra Leone. At age seven, he sat for several painters at the Croydon Art Club. Here he is depicted wearing a cap and tunic, although it's worth noting that artistic liberties may have been taken. His sister noted, "They placed a basin on his head and a shawl around his shoulders to give him a more 'African' appearance." Her quote implies that Coleridge-Taylor was styled in a manner that emphasized his "exoticism," despite being born and raised in Britain. Nevertheless, Coleridge-Taylor would go on to become a pioneering composer and conductor of classical music, and a champion of African and African-American musical genres.