This is a watercolour sketch, over a pencil outline, showing the view from the south corner of the King Charles Court. The scene looks towards the Chapel entrance under the dome of the Queen Mary Court, with figures of Greenwich Pensioners and a few dark-clad women (nurses or wives) on the steps to the Upper Grand Square, on what appears to be a sunny afternoon. The expression of the figures, the scale and the general atmosphere, rather than the loose drawing of the architecture, comprise the main qualities of the exercise.

This drawing was previously attributed to Clarkson Stanfield, Honorary Curator of the Naval Gallery in the Painted Hall from 1844, but is untypical of his sketched work. The figures and architectural treatment suggest that it is really by David Cox senior. This attribution is supported by a related Cox drawing in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, showing a view from the interior of the King William Courtyard eastward, up the steps and through the colonnade towards the Queen Mary Court ('Greenwich Hospital': watercolour over graphite, 7 5/8 x 14 15/16 ins. [Rogers Fund, 1907] ill. in Scott Wilcox, 'Sun, Wind and Rain: the Art of David Cox', YCBA/ Yale U.P. exh. cat. 2008, no. 28). Cox lived in what is now south-east London, including Dulwich, from 1804 to 1814 and from 1827 to 1841, most of his London views being of the earlier period, though this and the New York drawing are probably from the 1820s. PAF7612 is a similar view and may also be by Cox but less certainly.