No. 52 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)

Dated and signed 'May 75 AVpGB' (to the life by Gabriel Bray) this slightly caricatured figure must be someone seen on Bray's first African voyage. The dress is not that of an an officer of the Marines, or necessarily military. The tassled cocked hat and rather theatrical 'hand to heart' gesture suggest it may be a Portuguese official from some point along the 'slave coast'.

It is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.