The 'Victory' is shown broadside to port, from windward, going down Channel with Rudyerd's Eddystone Lighthouse distantly visible beyond her stern. She is shown flying the flag of Lord Hood as Vice-Admiral of the Red (red at the fore), as she heads outward-bound with her squadron in 1793 for the Mediterranean, where she was Hood's flagship at the Siege of Toulon and the invasion of Corsica. Hood had been promoted to Admiral of the Blue by the time he returned in November 1794, and on the left 'Victory' is shown again, leading the return of his squadron. In the main view 'Victory' also flies a Union jack on her bowsprit and a red ensign, as do other ships of the outward-bound squadron following her.

The 'Victory' was floated out of dock at Chatham in 1765 and the picture shows her as built except that she has been coppered. This process first took place in March 1780, when the bottom of the ship below the waterline was sheathed with 3923 sheets of copper to protect her hull against ship-worm. The name 'Victory' is present on the stern. In 1797 she was Sir John Jervis's flagship at the Battle of Cape St Vincent and in 1801-03 had a major rebuild at Chatham that enclosed her stern galleries and gave her a new figurehead. She then went to the Mediterranean as Nelson's flagship, up to and including at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Monamy was the son of the better-known Francis Swaine and grandson of the even more famous Peter Monamy, after whom he was named. He was active from about 1769 to 1774 and, if this painting is by him (as it has generally been attributed) into the 1790s. As an artist he specialized in still-life and genre, although he exhibited two marine pictures at the Free Society of Artists in 1771 and 1772.