In 1907, a consortium of white lead manufacturers, newly combined under the name of The National Lead Company, were looking for a symbol to unite them. As the finest white lead manufacturers, using what was called the "dutch method" of processing, and also because the people of Holland had a worldwide reputation for keeping their homes immaculately white-washed, they decided upon a little dutch boy. Artist Rudolf Yook, an illustrator of Dutch ancestry, came up with the initial sketches of a little boy dressed in overalls and carrying a paint bucket and brush. The finishing touches to the character came when the company commissioned noted artist Lawrence Carmichael Earl to paint an oil portrait of the Dutch boy. Earl used as his model a little Irish boy from his own neighborhood. That little boy grew up to become Michael Brady, a well-known political cartoon artist.

The Dutch Boy never grew up, but he became one of America's most well-known and well-liked children.