This is West's pen, ink and wash design for the tympanum of the pediment of the King William Courtyard of Greenwich Hospital, commissioned by the Hospital Directors and executed in Coade stone by West and Joseph Panzetta in 1812. The design is a stretched and developed version of West's 'Immortality of Nelson', BHC2905, itself conceived originally in 1807 as a painted element in a Nelson monument. The new elements of the tympanum version were heavily influenced by the Elgin Marbles, which were first exhibited in London in 1807, and the Coade factory regarded the finished result - which is approximately 10 feet high at the apex and 50 feet wide - as their master work.