Brace entered the navy in 1781, became Lieutenant in 1792, Commander in 1797 and Captain in 1800. In 1803 he became flag-captain to Admiral Cornwallis. He held commands at home and later in the Mediterranean until the end of the war with France. In 1816 he took command of the ‘Impregnable’ in Lord Exmouth’s squadron at the bombardment of Algiers where the ship was badly damaged because she failed to anchor in her proper station. He died while Commander-in-Chief at the Nore.

Henry William Pickersgill (1782–1875), who studied under the landscape artist George Arnald from 1802–05 (see BHC0509), was a prolific and gifted artist whose sitters included William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Duke of Wellington. Between 1806 and 1872 he exhibited nearly 400 pictures, mainly portraits, at the Royal Academy where this portrait was exhibited in 1837. He is shown wearing rear-admiral’s full dress uniform with the star and badge of the Order of the Bath.