(Updated, November 2019) A full-length portrait of Napier standing on rocks, with a fortress in the distance on the left. He is wearing a frock coat, white waistcoat and trousers. Instead of captain’s rings on the sleeves the frock coat has three buttons and epaulettes. His cocked hat is worn transversely, and has two buttons on the strap. He gestures towards the fortress with his right arm and holds his dress sword with undress slings in his left. Napier was commissioned lieutenant on 30 November 1805, a commander. He was in command of the ‘Recruit’ off Guadeloupe from late 1808 and in 1809 (which saw his promotion to captain in May) he was largely responsible for the capture of the French ship ‘Hautpoult’. This so impressed his admiral that Napier was given command of her under her new name ‘Abercromby’. From 1811 to 1815 he commanded frigates on the west coast of Italy and the south of France with great success. By 1827 he had lost most of his fortune in speculation and again sought employment at sea, initially in command of the ‘Galatea’. By 1833 he was a vice-admiral and major-general in the Portuguese navy of Maria II, while she was trying to force the throne from her uncle Don Miguel and not officially back in the Royal Navy (still as a captain) until 1836. Using the ‘nom de guerre’ of Dom Carlos de Ponza, Napier defeated the navy of Don Miguel off Cape St Vincent, followed shortly afterwards by the capture of Lisbon and victory for the young Queen Maria. In 1839 he was fighting the Egyptians under the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Robert Stopford, in the Mediterranean until playing a major part in negotiating a peace with them. He became a rear-admiral on 9 November 1846. and had brief command of the Channel fleet, and he later became engaged in an acrimonious dispute with the Admiralty, who would not give him the Mediterranean command. In 1854, the year after he was promoted to vice-admiral, he commanded the Baltic fleet fitted out against the Russians, but although he succeeded in blockading their ports he achieved little else. This fell so far short of public expectations that he was not returned to the command in 1854. Though always a controversial figure, Napier was a brave and popular leader, a notable naval reformer and probably the best-known senior officer of his time. He also wrote notable accounts of several of the campaigns in which he was involved. He became full admiral by seniority in March 1858 and died on 5 November 1860. The portrait is signed and dated ‘T.M. Joy 1847’ it appears toshow him still as a captain, possibly in the Syrian campaign of 1840 given the age at which he is shown. Joy painted another portrait of Napier as vice-admiral commanding the Baltic Fleet in 1853 (exh. RA, 1854). This is probably the one now in the Royal Aero Club (for illustration see Napier's ODNB entry).