File:Admiral Lord Amelius Beauclerk (1771-1846) RMG RP6213.jpg

Beauclerk, third son of the fifth Duke of St Albans, is here shown in three-quarter length, turned slightly to his right with his right hand tucked into the front of his uniform jacket. He is wearing the distinctive admiral's full-dress of 1832/3-1843, the only period in which red replaced white in collars and cuffs, with the star and ribbon of the Grand Cross of the Bath. He stands against a coastal background with a mortar pointing seaward to the left. Beauclerk was a successful frigate captain in he early years of the French Revolutionary War and twice captured enemy frigates of similar size to his own. From 1802 he commanded ships of the line in the Channel until promoted to rear-admiral in 1811. He was Commander in Chief at Lisbon, 1824-27, and at Plymouth, 1837-39, when he became first and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp DC to Queen Victoria, eventually rising to Admiral of the Red. This painting's frame is one of relatvely few examples in the collection which retains the original wooden 'labels' affixed by Greenwich Hospital to all pictures presented to it for the former Naval Gallery in the Painted Hall, identifying the subject below and the donor above. In this case Beauclerk left the picture to the Hospital on his death, the date of which is noted on the lower tablet as 10 December 1846, aged 75. BHC2539 is a full-length of the same sitter by John Jackson. [PvdM 1/09]