Dummy boards are life-size, flat, wooden figures painted and shaped in outline to resemble figures of servants, soldiers, children, and animals. The taste for using illusionistic painted figures as a form of house decoration probably originated in the trompe l’oeil, or life-like interior scenes painted by Dutch artists in the early 17th century. Dummy boards continued to be produced into the 19th century. They were placed in corners and on stairways to surprise visitors, or in front of empty fireplaces in the summer. Most were made by professional sign-painters, who also produced the hanging street signs prevalent until the late 18th century.

This example has the proportions of a child and probably shows a boy, to judge by his boyish face, close-cropped hair and the feather in his right hand which might be an arrow. He also holds something in his left hand, possibly a bow. His clothes indicate a date of 1610 to 1625, when aristocratic boys frequently wore dresses beyond infancy.