Portrait, head and shoulders, turned slightly to left and looking to front; the sitter is wearing a high collar and a sash. Features in soft, blended hatches of brown and sanguine, with some grey in the shadows and blue in the eyes, on a pale creamy carnation ground; hair in brown wash, lined with darker colour and the lights in grey; collar in white, modelled in grey over the vellum; coat in opaque pale grey modelled with darker colour; the buttons in ochre and yellow-brown; the sash in gummy black wash; background in opaque brown washes; on vellum put down on pasteboard.

Frame: Probably nineteenth-century silver-gilt oval locket; the plain convex back curving to a deep rounded edge, a very shallow straight side and a bezel holding a thick, bevelled flat glass; the hanger of rectangular section channelled along its outer curve and bifurcating into tapering spirals of five turns.