An imaginary full-length portrait to left wearing vice-admiral’s undress uniform with the star and ribbon of the Bath, the Neapolitan Order of St Ferdinand, the Turkish Order of the Crescent and German Order of St Joachim and of Merit. His empty sleeve is pinned across and he rests his head on his left hand in contemplation. Nelson is shown sitting at his desk in his day cabin on the ‘Victory’, on the morning of Trafalgar. On the desk is the codicil to his will, as well as papers, ink well, telescope and hat.

The painting is a copy of one of the series of portraits of eminent figures commissioned from Charles Lucy to include men such as Cromwell, Nelson, Bright, Cobden and Gladstone. Lucy submitted his Nelson painting – now in the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth – to the Royal Academy in 1854, with the title, ‘Nelson meditating in the cabin of the Victory previously to the battle of Trafalgar’ and also included Tennyson’s line, ‘mighty seaman, brave and true’. On the reverse of Good’s copy is a handwritten inscription: ‘Horatio Viscount Nelson KB etc Vice Admiral of the White. Painted by George Lucy Good, from the engraving of the picture done by Charles Lucy in 1854. Some corrections have been made in the uniform etc. G. Lucy Good.’