Horatio, 1st Viscount Nelson (1758-1805) was struck by a musket ball at 1.15 pm on the 21 October 1805 during the Battle of Trafalgar and was taken to the cock-pit of the Victory where he died at 4.30pm. He is shown here surrounded by his closest senior officers and ship's doctors, one of whom, Alexander Scott, is rubbing his chest to ease the pain.

After the battle of Trafalgar, the famous publisher, Alderman Josiah Boydell (1752-1817), offered a £500 prize for the best representation of the subject of the Death of Nelson. Arthur William Devis (1762-1822), son of the painter of conversation pieces of the same name, was in a debtor's prison at the time and had to obtain special permission to go to Portsmouth to research the subject. He seems to have gained unique access to the 'Victory' and to have persuaded those present in this scene to pose especially for him. This is an oil sketch for his rendering of the subject, exhibited at the British Institution in 1809 and now in the National Maritime Museum, generally agreed to be his best painting.

This sketch shows the disposition of the figures very freely and summarily, but moves into much greater detail when it comes to their faces, suggesting that it was the means by which Devis brought together into a single unity all the studies he must have made of the individual sitters. One can also see in this sketch the way in which Devis is using light to set the white-shrouded Nelson apart from his companions, in the manner of an 'Entombment of Christ'. In the finished version the darks are much deeper and the whole composition is designed around the way in which the light from the central lamp catches the various faces.