(Updated February 2015) Head-and-part-shoulders over-life-size bronze bust of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, facing forward, in rear-admiral's full-dress uniform (one shoulder star).

There are two broad ribbons of the order Bath and St Ferdinand, diagonally over the right shoulder with the star of Bath above the insignia of St Ferdinand and the Crescent (not St Joachim); also two Naval gold medals, that for St Vincent above and overlapping the Nile medal which is incised: 'MDCCXCVIII / NELSON / NILE'. Nelson's hair is shown as thick, brushed forwards and parted in the centre with no queue.

The bust is inscribed on the back in cursive script: 'Admiral Lord Nelson / made by command of / King William the Fourth / in 1834 / by Francis Chantrey'. It stands on its original massive Peterhead granite plinth, which bears a a bronze plaque inscribed: 'ADMIRAL LORD NELSON / MADE BY COMMAND OF / WILLIAM THE FOURTH / IN 1834 / BY FRANCIS CHANTREY / PRESENTED BY HIS WIDOW / LADY CHANTREY / A.D. 1851'. Residual screw holes show that this was originally fixed over the cursive inscription on the back of the bust itself but moved to the plinth at some unknown point, probably in the later 19th century.

The gift was made by Lady Chantrey to Greenwich Hospital, through the agency of George Jones RA, Keeper of the Royal Academy. Despite the inscription, this bust is not strictly that made for William IV, but a version probably taken from an initial clay or the plaster model submitted for approval in 1834. The prime version for the King was a colossal marble one, 98 cm high, which was delivered to Windsor in 1836. From 1901 Edward VII lent this to the Royal United Service Institution Museum in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and when that was dispersed in 1963 it was transferred to the National Portrait Gallery until 1999, when returned to Windsor (its modern Royal Collection number being RCIN69609).