A three-quarter length portrait of the seated Codrington. Wearing a rear-admiral’s frock coat with white trousers, he faces left and directs his gaze towards the viewer. He wears the ribbon of the C.B. and Baltic Medal and his cap lies on a table on his right. Codrington was severely wounded when he was a signal midshipman in his father’s flagship ‘Asia’ at the battle of Navarin. He later commanded the frigate ‘Talbot’ at the bombardment of Acre in 1840, and in 1854 sailed against the Russians as senior captain of Sir Charles Napier’s fleet in the Baltic. He became a rear-admiral in 1857 and was afterwards Admiral Superintendent at Malta 1858-63, and Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth from 1869-72.