This charming miniature shows a mother and her two children holding a basket of fruit. Another miniature portrait by Hayter in the Museum’s collection shows a small boy holding this very miniature (Museum no.P.24-1923), which is presumably of his mother and his siblings. A drawing also by Hayter in the Museum (Museum no. E.3150-1920) is a sketch in pencil of the same little boy. It is inscribed in ink ‘Son of an E I purser’, showing that he was the son of a purser in the service of the East India Company. We can assume therefore that this miniature is of the wife of this purser and of his other children.

It is possible that the pair were painted to send out to him in India. The child on the right is a girl, but the one on the left is probably a boy. Since Tudor times small boys from better-off families had been dressed in their early years in exactly the same dress as girls, often until the age of six. The process of ‘breeching’, when the boy shed his petticoats, was a proud family occasion. By 1800, when this portrait was painted, boys usually graduated out of dresses at about four years old.