Head-and-shoulders classical-style bust of George IV in light grey marble, the head turned to sitter's left, on a round socle.

The king is shown in a loose tunic-type robe secured at the right shoulder by a round brooch bearing a lion's head, from which a tassel also hangs to the front. His natural-style curly hair has been achieved by considerable relief undercutting.

This bust is the eleventh and last replica of the prime version, shown at the Royal Academy in 1822 and now in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth. A twelfth was ordered but never executed. This one was commissioned in 1826 by Frederick John Robinson while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1823-27), to commemorate the king's 'sterling qualities', and was presented to him as a royal gift towards the end of his term of office in April 1827, when he was first ennobled as Viscount Goderich and became leader of the House of Lords under Canning: when Canning died that August he briefly succeeded him as Prime Minister, at the king's request but had to stand down after five months, though he occupied a series of further senior government posts into the 1840s and was made 1st Earl of Ripon in 1833.

The bust cost the king 200 guineas, the bill being paid in 1829, and is signed on the back 'CHANTREY SC.' below a Latin inscription, which is more visibly repeated on the plinth: GEORGII . IIII . BRITANNIARUM . REGIS / IMAGINEM / SIBI . A[.]REGE . IPSO . DONATAM / GRATO . ET . PIO . ANIMO / TANTAE . BENIGNITATIS . IN . MEMORIAM / POSTERIS . SUIS . CONSERVANDAM . POSUIT / F . I . ROBINSON . FISCI . CANCELLARIUS / A . D. MDCCCXXVII.
[F. J. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a spirit of gratitude and affectionate duty, placed [here this] likeness of George IV, King of the Britons, given to him by the king himself, to be preserved for his descendants as a memorial of such great generosity, 1827].

This bust was purchased by Sir James Caird for the Museum in October 1932 from a collateral descendant of Lord Ripon.