An etching after the painting, ‘Pilgrims to St Paul’s’, by John Everett Millais. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1868 with the accompanying lines from ‘Ulm and Trafalgar’ (1806) by George Canning, ‘before that hallow’d tomb……Frequent in solemn pilgrimage they stand’. The etching shows two naval pensioners standing in the crypt of St Paul’s, in front of Nelson’s tomb. One pensioner stands with hat in hand looking towards the tomb where the lettering ‘…RATIO NELSON’ [HORATIO. VISC. NELSON] is visible on the plinth below the marble sarcophagus holding his remains. The other sailor, looking on reverently, stands on crutches having lost both legs. The light from the lantern adds to the atmospheric effect.

The image of Nelson was an object of reverence for naval pensioners and an icon of national memory. The etching was published in the November 1895 edition of the ‘Magazine of Art’. It was used to illustrate an article discussing paintings such as ‘Pilgrims to St Paul’s’, then in the collection of T. Humphrey Roberts.