Portrait of a young boy, formerly thought to be Horatio Nelson, c.1810 (watercolour, ivory, paper)

Creator: unknown Oval head-and-shoulders miniature of a young boy half turned to sitter's right in an oval gilt metal suspension frame. By tradition it has previously been identified as Horatio Nelson, when a boy, in part because of a piece of paper long fixed on the back and inscribed 'Horatio Nelson, Burnham Thorpe, aged 8..'. However, the boy wears a skeleton suit and hair cropped in the back, and with a long fringe, styles popularly worn by children in the first decades of the nineteenth century. It is therefore more likely that that it is one of Horatio Nelson’s nephews, possibly of the Bolton or Matcham families.