Head-and-shoulders classical-pattern bust, on a shaped square plinth with scrolled side decoration.

Nelson faces forward with his head slightly turned to his right. His face is shown as thin, his hair short and brushed forward, parted at the centre. He wears a classical tunic or robe, loose round the neck and gathered and fixed by a button or circular booch on his left shoulder.

The whole item appears formerly to have been gilded over a layer of green paint . Traces of this remain all over but especially on the back, where the piece is inscribed on the plinth in cursive script: 'Lord Nelson Coffee Fecit 1806'. This bust appeared, erroneously described as a terracotta, in a Sotheby's, London, sale of 19 September 1980, lot 137, where the Museum purchasd it.

Coffee (1790-1846) is known to have modelled a smaller (106 mm) Parian-ware bust of Nelson of slightly different pattern, the hair being fuller and the shoulders and upper chest shown similar to Gahagan's (SCU0096), squared-off and without drapery. However, the model here appears to have been a bust by Anne Seymour Damer, dated 1798.