Winsome children humorously aping the manners of adults were a popular subject for genre scenes. In the 1830s the artist William Henry Hunt exhibited a series of twenty such images at the Old Water-Colour Society in London. These were later produced as lithographs and published as Hunt’s Comic Sketches (1844). The series included two images of black children. This image, which was originally exhibited as 'Jim Crow' but re-titled 'Master James Crow – Out of his Element', and a companion piece 'Miss Jem-ima Crow', re-titled 'Miss Jim-Ima Crow – A West Indian Cinderella' (museum number E.333-1901).

Both works appear to have been painted from living models who have been posed with studio props to suggest a narrative. James Crow (whose name references ‘Jim Crow’ the comic blackface act first seen in London in 1836) is ‘out of his element’, i.e. away from the heat of his supposed homeland, and has to warm himself in front of the stove. Tending the fire was a common duty of black domestic servants in British homes, many of whom were boys or young men.