File:Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1758-1805, 1st Viscount Nelson RMG BHC2899.tiff

(Revised April 2013) A long bust-length portrait to left in vice-admiral's undress uniform, 1795-1812, wearing a hat. It has previously mistakenly been stated to relate to Keymer's portrait at Great Yarmouth, for which Nelson sat at the Wrestlers Inn between 6 and 11 March 1801, when in the 'St George' as second-in-command to Sir Hyde Parker, before their departure for the Baltic and the ensuing Battle of Copenhagen. However, this (now in the Nelson Museum, Great Yarmouth) is a hatless, facing one, in full dress and decorations, which Keymer gave after Trafalgar to the Society of Friends, a private Yarmouth club of which he was a member. It was then put in the elaborate frame which still holds it and hung in the room used by the club in a Yarmouth inn. It was subsequently in a panelled room (called the Nelson Room) in the old Star Hotel after the club followed the landlord there, but from about 1907 in Yarmouth Town Hall. (The panelling of the room itself was sold to America about 1913 and remained unused until 1966 when acquired and re-erected in the Metropolitan Museum, New York).

The present painting is noted in the NMM 'Preliminary Catalogue' of 1961 as a study for a more finished version then in the collection of Captain D.H.C. Cooper RN at Windlesham. Despite the fact that it shows Nelson as vice-admiral (which he became on 1 January 1801) it is possibly based on a sketch Keymer may have done when he saw Nelson on his return to England at Yarmouth in late 1800, since there is reason to believe from the Society of Friends minute books that he was briefly in their company at the Wrestlers Inn on 6-8 November while he and the Hamiltons were staying there, and Nelson also left with Keymer one of the versions of the Guzzardi portrait (see BHC2895 and 2896) that he brought home in order to make a copy, then very rapidly engraved by John Young and published on 8 December 1800. It is well recorded that Keymer was not happy with Guzzardi's portrait and, in the following March, while the fleet was preparing to leave for the Baltic , persuaded Nelson to sit for the one that remains at Yarmouth - though it is in fact of similar quality to the Guzzardi and the present study is at least less stilted and more natural. For some reason not yet clarified, neither it nor the finished version already mentioned are included in Richard Walker's generally comprehensive catalogue of 'Nelson Portraits'.

In 1798 Nelson had been badly wounded at the Battle of the Nile and, when Keymer saw him both in 1800 and early 1801, was still in relatively poor health and with his marriage in ruins. There was always a conflict for him between his successes in battle and heady taste of victory on the one side, and sickness and problems in his private life on the other. He complained frequently of pains and illness, having been severely wounded three times. A curl of grey hair has been carefully placed close to his sightless right eye. Keymer (1764-1816) was a well-known local artist at Yarmouth and also a miniaturist.