Admiral Lord Nelson, Battle of Trafalgar
This is Matthew Boulton's private medal, in many ways a response to the medal produced at Soho, sponsored by Alexander Davison for the Battle of the Nile. Boulton wanted it to be in his name and to get the credit. He spent a huge amount of time discussing the portrait with Emma Hamilton and used the wax portrait by Catherine Andras as the basis for Kuchler to work from.
This portrait by Andras was modelled from the life and was much admired. A contemporary wrote to Boulton in 1806, reporting a conversation with Lady Hamilton, Nelson's mistress, in which 'she shewed me the inclosed Wax Profile which She declares is the most striking likeness that has been taken, & much more so than our little drawing or print by Mr Da Costa. On asking Lady H: in what features the model so closely resembled Lord Nelson as she had declared; she said, in the direction & form of the nose, mouth and chin, that the general carriage of the body was exactly his, and that altogether the likeness was so great it was impossible for anybody who had known him to doubt about or mistake it.'
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