This is a portrait of Christian in his midshipman’s sea coat and unusually holding a cutlass instead of the mandatory chart or a sextant – a clue to the violence that awaits his troubled passage through life? Being well-born Christian was more ambitious of deeds than position and was therefore quite content to be shown in his working sea-coat. This painting shows him at home on the Isle of Man after being selected as a midshipman on the Bounty. He was twenty-five [seven?] a little spoilt and enigmatic. The style of painting is seventeenth century northern renaissance with its receding, background in the style of Pieter De Hooch.