who is the boy? [2]

William Dobson, John Byron, 1640s, Manchester U

 A better known but still unnamed Black attendant is seen in William Dobson's portrait of Sir John Dobson [later first Lord Byron] (1599-1652).   The young man, depicted unrealistically as a child in order to convey his social inferiority,, holds the bridle of Dobson's giant grey while Byron points to two mounted figures in the background, presumably referencing Byron's participation in Civil War battles.  He became the first baron Byron following the battle of Newbury in 1643.  The portrait may mark this event, as Dobson was an equally loyal Royalist.  

It would be great to find that the Byrons of Newstead had an African-born groom at this date.  But as both opportunities and resources for portraiture were limited during during the War, it may also be that the African lad is a fictive figure, as it were, included to emphasise the status of this staunch supporter of Charles I.   He must however have been drawn and painted from a living model.  Or was the figure copied from a pictorial source?  

As is doubtless the case.  The horse was taken, albeit perfunctorily, from Vandyck's great equestrian portrait of Charles I, to enhance the swaggering demeanour of Byron, who was famously proud of the scar on his cheek.  The attendant can probably be found in another aggrandising portrait of the era.

Kehinde Wiley used this painting as the basis for his own image of 1st Lord Byron, where a muscly Black model replaces the baron, and the attendant has been ignored. 

Kehinde Wiley, 1st Lord Byron, 2013, MFA Boston