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This original one-of-a-kind oil painting was created by New Orleans Emilie Rhys in stages. Started in 2014 as a charcoal drawing on canvas, with the full-color painting begun in 2019, this piece had as its source Villard Paddio’s famous photograph of Louis Armstrong in the Colored Waif’s Home Band, circa 1913. In Rhys's painting, Armstrong is depicted bathed in a “springtime green” glow, seated at center, just behind and above Professor Peter Davis, the band director. The latter is holding a piece of paper in his hands with the number “27” printed on it, though it is unknown what this number represents. Some have suggested that the band was participating in a contest, that “27” could be their entry number. Particularly of note in the image is the 12-year-old Armstrong’s body language, evincing a fundamental physical confidence and personal power that would stay with him his whole life.

The young cornetist to Armstrong’s right on the bench below him, leaning forward from behind Professor Peter Davis, has been almost positively identified as Henry “Kid” Rena, who went on to replace Armstrong in Kid Ory’s band in 1919 when Armstrong left to join Fate Marable’s band on the Streckfus river boats. Despite best efforts to do so, none of the other young men seen in this image have yet been identified, though it can be surmised that some went on to have careers in music in those heady early days of jazz.

Viewers who know the original 1913 photograph well will note that Rhys is exercising a bit of artistic license in the composition of this painting: Look at the large framed image at Peter Davis's feet. She replaced the hand-painted sign identifying him as the director of the band and instead inserted a close-up of a 1931 Villard Paddio photo of Louis Armstrong and Peter Davis. Armstrong is holding the cornet he learned on at the Home and which was donated to the Jazz Museum in 1965.

This painting appears on pages 177–181 in the 2021 book "New Orleans Music Observed: The Art of Noel Rockmore and Emilie Rhys", and was included in the eponymous 2020–2021 exhibit at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.