Head-and-shoulders plaster bust on a round socle, the sitter being dressed in flag-officer's uniform, with epaulettes. The captain's naval gold medal for San Domingo (1806) hangs from under the left lapel and the star of the Order of the Bath is sewn on the left breast of the coat.

The bust bears the inscription 'Sir P. Malcolm Sc April 5' and a date which may be 1817 or 1827, and was presented to the Museum in 1940 by a Mrs Malcolm who is presumed to have been a member of the sitter's family.

The received attribution of this bust to Chantrey is doubtful since no representation of the sitter is recorded in his ledger.

Malcolm was a notable Scottish officer who entered the navy in 1778 and saw active service in the War of American Independence. He continued to serve through the peace and, after further action early in the French Revolutionary War, became a captain in October 1794. He spent the later 1790s in the East as flag-captain to Rear-Admiral Rainier, returning home in 1803. In February 1804 he took the 'Royal Sovereign' out to the Mediterranean and, after briefly commanding the 'Kent' under Nelson there, shifted early in 1805 into the 'Donegal' in which he took part in the great pre-Trafalgar chase to the West Indies. He missed Trafalgar itself, having been sent to Gibraltar for water but rendered signal assistance in the stormy aftermath, in saving lives, in capturing the 'Rayo' and taking the damaged Spanish prize 'Bahama' to Gibraltar. He remained in the 'Donegal' to 1811, including at San Domingo under Duckworth in 1806. In 1812, in the 'Royal Oak' he became captain of the fleet to his uncle by marriage, Lord Keith, continuing in the post for six months after becoming a rear-admiral in December 1813. He then took 'Royal Oak' to North America as naval third-in-command during the Anglo-American War of 1812, commanded in the North Sea in 1815, and in 1816-17 commanded the squadron enforcing the security around the imprisoned Napoleon at St Helena. As a vice-admiral he was commander in chief in the Mediterranean, 1828-31, and on the Dutch coast during the 1832 Schelde crisis, before returning to the Mediterranean for a further year in command there from May 1833 to April 1834.