This is a painted (oil) copy by Clifford Sevior, from a famous early photographic portrait of the elderly John Herschel taken by Julia Margaret Cameron. It is presumed to have been done in the 1970s or later, after the revival of interest in Victorian photographs, but might be earlier though nothing is known of the artist. It came to the Museum with other items transferred from the Royal Greenwich Observatory (latterly at Cambridge) when it was abolished in 1998 as part of a restructuring of British astronomy. It is in a gold-coloured frame (650 x 497 mm) and is signed, lower left.