This image has the intensity frequently found in self-portraits. Joseph Clark has depicted himself as a smartly dressed and rather self-conscious young man in the act of drawing. Clark painted many oil paintings of children, which were generally well received by the Victorian public, and he was a regular exhibitor of childhood subjects at the Royal Academy. Before he started his oil paintings, he normally made a series of precise drawings and expressive watercolours of the chosen subject. He frequently used members of his own family as models.