Head-and-shoulders plaster bust of Admiral Richard Howe on a round socle, after John Flaxman, one of an important early set of four by Chantrey (see also SCU0016, SCU0032, and SCU0085) made in 1809 for the architect Daniel Asher Alexander for the Royal Naval Asylum at Greenwich, which Alexander was then constructing (1807-10) around the Queen's House. The Asylum combined with the Greenwich (later Royal) Hospital School in the 1820s and, after this moved to Suffolk in 1933, the buildings became those of the National Maritime Museum (est. 1934).

Alexander was encouraged to employ Chantrey by James Montgomery, whose portrait Chantrey had just painted. All four busts have usually been presumed to be copies from works by others. This one is likely to have been copied from the monument to the sitter (d. 1799) in St Paul's Cathedral, which was erected in 1803, or a bust version. It may be the bust of Howe that Chantrey exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1809.

The sitter is shown in flag-officer's uniform with the sash and star of (probably) the Order of the Garter, to which the cloak over the right shoulder may also allude. Howe was the only naval Knight of the Garter (other than royalty) until Terence Lewin (Lord Lewin) became one in the 1980s. The chain modelled round the neck is the gold chain suspending his flag officer's gold medal for the Battle of 1 June 1794. This was the first occasion these medals were awarded and the only one with accompanying chains: all subsequent ones were on ribbons.

As indicated above, Chantrey was a painter before he became a sculptor and this set of plaster busts for the Royal Naval Asylum is one of his earliest sculptural commissions.

This is a monochrome studio photograph, from an existing Museum negative showing the bust before conservation undertaken in 2001-02: it will in due course be replaced by a directly taken digital one. To discuss ordering a high-quality image please contact the Picture Library.