Crayon drawing on buff paper, heightened with white chalk. Fitzjames entered the Navy in 1827, had a distinguished and active early career, including being wounded in the 1842 in the storming of Chiang-Kiang-Foo, China, when a lieutenant in the 'Cornwallis'. He became a captain in 1845 and commanded the 'Erebus' from that year on Sir John Franklin's fatal Arctic expedition on which he died in 1847. The drawing appears to show him in civilian dress and reputedly about the age of 26. It was presented to the Naval Gallery at Greenwich by William James Capper Coningham in 1885 on behalf of his deceased father, the politician and art collector William Coningham (1815-1884), to whom James was, in effect, an adopted brother. The artist is unidentified but John Linnell has been suggested. [GH/PvdM 6/11; updated KG 07/21]