Louis Philippe Boitard, Little Cazey, pen and brown ink with grey wash and watercolour

This small boy - evidently known as Little Cazey - was drawn in Bridewell, the former royal palace on the west bank of the Fleet River. This had been given to the City by Edward VI to serve both as a school for destitute children and as a short-term prison for petty offenders and disorderly women. Children normally wore a blue uniform which was renewed annually, but this boy is barefoot and ragged.He is recognisable by his cross-eyes and the same torn coat as a link-boy (employed to carry a link, or torch, to light pedestrians along the streets) in Boitard's print The Covent Garden Morning Frolick (see Related Objects). Link-boys were frequently associated with dubious night-time activities and are often depicted suggestively.This sketch, and another in a private collection showing the same boy in a different pose, came from an album of sixty-five drawings by Boitard (about 1733-1767) that remained intact until the 1950s.