A Harvard art historian has uncovered a 19th century stained glass window depicting who is believed to be Jesus as a person of colour.

Located at a church in Rhode Island, USA, the picture had previously gone unnoticed as worshippers did not recognise it as depicting Jesus.

The art piece shows Jesus engaged in conversation with two women, believed to be Mary and Martha, who are also shown with dark skin and was installed in the former St. Mark's Church, Warren, 1878.

"It's a rebel window," Arnold told the Providence Journal, believing it could be the first public work to show Jesus as a person of colour.
Virginia Raguin - a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts - was among those to visit.

"This is a radical statement about fundamental equality of persons, and today we are privileged to have this record,' she told the Providence Journal".

The intentional use of brown is suggested by the use of milky-white glass in many of the church's other windows.

Arnold discovered the 12-foot glass window after buying the former church to transform it into a home.