A youthful Turner looks out with a composed, slightly guarded expression, his head turned subtly to one side, framed by loose brown hair and set against a subdued blue-grey background. The painting is modest in size and quietly direct, showing him in a green coat and high white ruffled shirt, without embellishment or theatrical pose. Its style is careful but unpolished, with soft, even lighting and a focus on contour and form rather than flourish. Believed to be one of Turner’s first oil paintings, if not his first, he gave it to his housekeeper, Hannah Danby.