The Beloved (Black ‘Boy’)

By Janine Francois

I first came across the young child on one of my many walks-through at Tate Britain about five and a half years ago. This normally involves observing what is happening, who is present, and how my Black women can create an affect in the gallery space. Considering the numerous times I have practised these walks, forming part of my auto-ethnographic research for my PhD at Tate Britain, I was clearly ready to see him(?) on this particular walk and the many others. I remember being taken in by their eyes; there was a deep pensive innocence to them, but also an uncertainty about his place in the world. Looking at them reminded me of my then pre-teen nephew and the liminal space Black boys occupy, when they find out society deems them a threat. So, I adopted them and promised I would visit whenever I was onsite, to at the very least be one Black visitor that saw him, and not his Blackness used to amplify the white bodies that surrounded him. I wanted to know more about this child, how did they end up in London, in Rossetti’s studio, what was their story and their name.

We do not know much about the young child, and their status is questionable: was he a servant or was he enslaved? His ‘master’ was American, and this raises even more questions about the true status of this child. The painting was produced 30 years after slavery was abolished in the Caribbean and at around the time slavery became abolished in the United States of America. When Victoria and Kate (from the Race, Empire and the Pre-Raphaelites research group) arranged an archival visit to see the sketches for his depiction, I was overcome with emotion. I wanted to burst into tears, especially when I learnt that when modelling, the child was in deep distress and that Rossetti described him as ‘crying and calling out for his mother.’ This dramatically changed how I saw them; all this time I’ve been looking at a traumatised child. How cruel it must have been for them, to engage in something so unfamiliar and strange? On top of what they had to already endure at such a young age, when they should be out playing with their friends! Did they even have friends? Did they ever get a chance to play? The cruelness does not even end there, they are erased from the 1970s ceramic tile mural of the painting as you exit Pimlico station.

Viewing the various depictions of the other young Black children that Rossetti drew for this piece, was extremely overwhelming. These sketches felt so life-like, more real and intimate than photographs; it was truly a moment of the past confronting the present and sketches were reminders of these children’s existences. My ambiguity about the young child’s gender was a rightful hunch: the final depiction encompassed the likeliness of both female and male subjects. The sketch which directly informed the final depiction, has much softer, more feminine features than those in the drawing of the same child on the back of the sheet. This reminded me of what my Black transwoman friend shared about growing up, and how she saw a version of herself in this child. This sharing has also changed how I viewed the child as not being cis-gendered. So now I might have a niece, nephew, or a nibling? Either way, I will commit to my promise of regular visits, long after my PhD is due.

Janine Francois is a Black Feminist-Killjoy, Writer, Academic in Exile, Time Traveller, Cultural Producer and a Consultant. Janine is a Visiting Lecturer at Royal College of Art and Ph.D student at Tate Britain and the University of Bedfordshire.