William Edward Dighton (1822–1853) in Middle Eastern Dress by Frederick Goodall

This is 'William Edward Dighton (1822-1853) in Middle Eastern Dress,' painted by Frederick Goodall in 1852 and now at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The title tells you it's a man in a costume. It doesn't tell you what he's holding.

The catalog entry calls it a book or document. But the man in the portrait was William Edward Dighton, a landscape painter. And the object in his hands isn't a book at all. When you look at the interior, you see small compartments, not pages. It's a portable paint box, sometimes called a sketch box, the kind an artist would carry outdoors.

Goodall painted this the same year he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. Both men were working painters in the same London circles, and this portrait was likely a gesture between colleagues. Dighton posed not in the costume of a scholar or a merchant, but holding the very tools of the profession he and Goodall shared.

Dighton died just one year after this portrait was completed, at age 31. The painting outlasted him, and his paint box is still visible if you slow down enough to look.