Portrait.

An engraving from the painting ‘Nelson meditating in the cabin of the Victory previously to the battle of Trafalgar’ by Charles Lucy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854 and now in the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth. Lucy’s narrative picture was accompanied by the line, ‘mighty seaman, brave and true’ from Tennyson’s ‘Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’ (1852). It was one of the series of portraits of eminent figures that he was commissioned to produce, including of Cromwell, Nelson, John Bright, Richard Cobden and Gladstone.

Nelson is shown on board the ‘Victory’, on the morning of Trafalgar, sitting at his desk in his day cabin. He is represented as a full-length portrait to left wearing vice-admiral’s undress uniform with the ribbon and star of the Bath, the Neapolitan Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit, the Turkish Order of the Crescent and the gold medals for St Vincent and the Nile. This is inaccurate since it is known that that, on board and on the day of Trafalgar, Nelson actually wore his everyday undress coat with only the embroidered orders on the breast. His empty sleeve is pinned across and he rests his head on his left hand in contemplation. On the desk is Nelson’s codicil to his will, written that morning, together with papers, ink well, telescope and hat. The image creates a scene of calm contemplation before the battle that resulted in his death. For another version see BHC3824.