This portrait of Greenwich Pensioner John Lovell was drawn in June 1840, as were two versions of a related portrait of John Adams, alias John Wilkinson (see PAF6223 and PAH3992). Lovell (c. 1770-1848) had been one of Nelson's bargemen at the raid on Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1797, where he helped staunch the wound to Nelson's right arm and tore up his shirt to make a sling for it. He died at Greenwich Hospital in 1848 (see Joseph Allen, 'Life of Nelson', 1853, p. 104). For notes on the circumstances of this portrait see PAF6223, which has a related letter from the artist attached in which he describes Lovell as 'a steady man': also MS BGY/W/3 which are Allen's further notes on Lovell and Adams/Wilkinson. This and PAH3992 are Greenwich Hospital Collection items. Lovell also appears in Andrew Morton's 1845 oil group portrait, 'The United Service', BHC1159, whose frame bears the additional information that he had served with Nelson in the 'Agamemnon', 1793-96 and was at the Battle of the Nile.