Lighthearted urchins like this were a profitable stock-in-trade for Frank Duveneck, who went to Munich at age twenty-two to study at the Royal Bavarian Academy. The broad brushwork and unblended dark colors of this portrait reveal Duveneck's admiration for old-master painting techniques, which he adapted to depictions of urban street life.

Adapted from

William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (1951.17), May 2006.

• Frank Duveneck, The Whistling Boy (1872)
  Look at another painting of this same motif, in the collection of the Art Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio and available through Ohio History Central.
• Frank Duveneck, The Cobbler's Apprentice (1877)
  Check out another example of Duveneck's expressive depictions of youth, in the collection of the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio.