Head of a Page Boy 

by Ford Madox Brown 

Date: c. 1837 

Materials: Oil on canvas 

This oil study is one of Brown's earliest works.

He retained an affection for his earliest paintings, which included a number of small portraits and figure studies.

In retrospective mood, he recorded in a diary entry for 6 January 1856:

"At this time when I first began art [seriously] & before I fell into any kind of mannerism, many of my studies are better than I was able to do for many years afterwards".