This striking portrait of a handsome young airman dates from the early years of Laura Knight's time in Cornwall - probably 1916, the year that Francis Jack Chown received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps. The Chown family were from Crowan, near Camborne and this portrait was probably commissioned by them. Chown, who joined the RFC straight from school, was tragically killed in a dogfight with no less than four enemy aircraft at the Battle of Menin Road in 1917, aged just 19.