John Coats Browne was the son of a Philadelphia ironmonger who gave up his pacifist Quaker upbringing to bear arms in the American Revolution. In this portrait he is about ten years old, standing nearly life-sized, his soft, wistful gaze off-setting the confidence of his stance. His pose was based on Thomas Gainsborough's 1770 portrait of Jonathan Buttall, better known as Blue Boy. By using Gainsborough's model, Wright depicts Browne with the sophistication and grandeur of European portraiture.