Engraver’s proof with grey wash and pencil annotations. A three-quarter-length portrait of Edward Hawke (1705–1781) in flag officer’s full-dress uniform, 1767–1783, with the ribbon and star of the Order of the Bath. He stands in front of a rocky cliff, holding his hat in his right hand and his sword in his left with a naval engagement in the left background. Areas on the sitter’s waistcoat have been touched with grey wash and the proof is annotated in pencil with instructions to the engraver, including the comment that ‘the background must have more tone & gradation, the character of work overpowers the head, & gives the Engraving a common appearance.’ This portrait was engraved by Henry Thomas Ryall after an original painting by Francis Cotes in the Greenwich Hospital Collection (see BHC2754). Cotes’s painting was produced in the late 1760s and presented to the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital by the sitter’s grandson, Edward Harvey Hawke, third Baron Hawke. Ryall’s engraving was produced as an illustration in E. H. Locker's ‘Memoirs of Celebrated Naval Commanders...’ (1831). (Updated May 2019.)