Oval miniature in gouache, in an oval gilt metal suspension frame with a blue glass back. The elderly sitter is shown in long bust length (almost half-length) half-turned to his left but looking out to the viewer, against a neutral green/ grey background. His hair is almost white and probably natural, his eyes blue and he wears the 1787 rear-admiral's undess coat (denoted by buttons grouped in twos), with a white waistcoat, shirt and neckcloth. His left hand is tucked into the waistcoat front and the hilt of his sword is visible, held in the crook of his left arm. The whole image is badly water-stained and there is a label on the reverse reading 'Sir Edmund Affleck / From Rev R. W. Pugh, 1946' .

Edmund was ninth son of the eighteen children of Gilbert Affleck (1684?–1764), politician, of Dalham Hall, Suffolk, and was born on 19 April 1725. He became a lieutenant in the Royal Navy in July 1745, commander in May 1756, and captain on 23 March 1757. He served through the Seven Years War in the 'Mercury ', 20 guns, and the 'Launceston', 40. He remained in active sea employment in the following years of peace and in 1778, during the American War, was appointed to the 'Bedford', 74, and sailed for North America with Vice-Admiral John Byron. He saw only a little early action and was briefly port commissioner at New York in the sumer of 1781. Still in the 'Bedford' , he joined Samuel Hood that November and took leading parts in both his victory against the French at Frigate Bay, St Kitt's, in January 1782, and Rodney's at the Battle of the Saints that April, for which he was made a baronet. On his return to England in 1784 he was promoted Rear-Admiral of the Blue and he became Rear-Admiral of the Red in 1787. Affleck was twice married, inheriting Ardleigh Hall near Colchester from his first wife (who had herself inherited it as a widow), for which town he was MP from 1782 in the Tory interest of William Pitt the Younger. He was first widowed in 1782 and remarried in May 1788, but died six months later in Colchester on 19 November 1788. No children are recorded.

The sitter's 1787 uniform coat suggests this image may have been painted within a year ot his death to mark either his final promotion to Rear-Admiral of the Red, and/ or possibly for his second wife to mark their marriage, though this slightly preceded the late-year uniform change. It was presented in October 1946 by the Revd R. W. Pugh with MNT0050: this is by the same hand and shows Affleck's naval younger brother, Philip.