(Updated, February 2018) A half-length seated portrait in admiral's uniform, in a bow-backed wooden chair and turned slightly to the left, with the sitter's hands clasped on his knee. A desk behind bears his uniform cap, with a plain cream-coloured wall beyond.

Madden came from a naval family, being the son of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Edward Madden Bt (1862-1935), to whose baronetcy (created 1919) he succeeded. He had a distinguished and much decorated naval career beginning in the 1920s, and he retired as Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet, in 1965. During the Second World War he spent a long period, including considerable action, as second-in-command of the battleship 'Warspite', the flagship of Admiral Cunningham, and he later made important contributions to NATO. He was a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum from 1968, became Chairman in 1972 and retired in 1977. This portrait was commissioned by the Trustees to mark his retirement. It is a fine likeness in both feature and expression, and conveys something of his private charm and modesty. Madden was a keen and talented amateur water-colourist, especially in retirement, and had the good fortune of some boyhood tuition from W.L. Wyllie, when they were both on board his father's flagship, 'Revenge', at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in 1918. He contributed to several exhibitions and the Museum has four examples by him. He died just before this portrait was first publicly exhibited in 2001 (in the Queen's House 'Sea of Faces' exhibition), when it illustrated his obituary in the 'Independent'. The portrait is signed and dated, lower right.

The artist, John Ward (1917-2007), was born and educated in Hereford, trained at the Royal College of Art and saw war service in the Royal Engineers, 1939-46. He worked for 'Vogue' magazine, 1948-52, before becoming a fully independent artist and portrait painter. He was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1956 and Academician in 1966 (resigned 1997). He was a Vice President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (member from 1952) and was appointed CBE in 1985.