Portrait, head and shoulders, turned slightly to left and looking to front; the sitter is wearing armour. Features (where visible) in sharp, wiry hatches of brown and sanguine, with some blue-grey shadowing diagonally stroked and white heightening, on a thick yellowish carnation ground; hair in long loose strokes of grey and brown with some white; collar mainly bare vellum modelled in grey; armour in grey wash, hatched with darker colour and with white lights and gold rivets; background a dense dark brown wash; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Frame: Twentieth-century gilt-metal oval locket, with slip-in bezel at back, set with convex glass to show the old inscription; the sides half-round with a projecting rolled-edge bezel holding the principal glass, also convex; hanger of cosse de pais type with central tear-drop opening, two projections on each side, and small ball finial, with a tapering flat wire spiral of five turns on each side of it.