A half-length portrait to the right showing the sitter in a brown silk doublet, slashed from shoulder, a leather jerkin with gold embroidered buttonholes, a brestplate with the blue sash of the Garter, and red velvet breeches, also with gold emoriodered buttonholes doen the outside seams. His right hand rests on an anchor fluke; his left holds a baton.
Van Dyck painted several portraits of Percy, who was Lord High Admiral to Charles I from 1638 to 1642, notably a horizontal format 'overdoor' head and shoulders version, which was the earliest, a full length, and the present half length of 1636-38. The first two are notable as those which introduce a large anchor as an emblem of his office, much copied for sea-officer portraits thereafter. This is a copy of the half-length, still (with the others) at Alnwick Castle, the family seat, in which the anchor is in a more subordinate position. It was presented to Greenwich Hospital (GH no. 115) by Captain Lord Prudhoe RN in 1835 and used to be attributed to Henry Stone ('Old Stone', 1616-53) though that has never been satisfactorily demonstrated. Ellis Waterhouse, whose opinion was asked in May 1946, categorically said 'Not by Stone', as noted on the previous paper record. [PvdM 7/11]