Boy in Cavalier Costume with a Plum Cake, c.1900

Late Victorian and Edwardian parents often dressed small boys in velvet suits and lace collars borrowed from the age of Van Dyck, and pictures of such children sold widely as prints. The subject here is probably Little Jack Horner, who put in his thumb and pulled out a plum.

A boy in a grey-blue velvet doublet and breeches, with a deep lace collar, a white silk sash and rosettes at his knees and shoes, leans against a carved oak chair in the corner of a red-walled room. He holds up a plum and smiles at the viewer. At his feet sits a decorated plum cake with a slice cut away.

Colour print of around 1900, under glass, with some staining and blotching to the red background. In a gilt composition frame with a moulded border of hearts, with losses to the gilding. On the reverse is a typed framer’s label for a different print, ‘The Swing’ after J. B. Pater, which suggests the backboard was reused.