Juge de paix [graphic]

"Nicholls, M.P. for Tregony, sits in an arm-chair directed to the left; in his right hand is a tall staff in whose head is an eye; his left hand is thrust under his coat, which is buttoned. From a tricolour ribbon round his neck is suspended a small metal olive-branch. He wears his ordinary dress, his shrunken legs in wide half-boots. The portrait shows the notoriously ugly Nicholls, with his left eye closed, a projecting lower jaw, his upper lip drawn up in a permanent snarl. He sits on a square dais covered with a flowered carpet. Behind is a wall of heavy blocks of stone, in which (above his head) is a niche. In this stands a statue of Justice, her eyes covered by a bonnet-rouge, her scales and sword held up aggressively."--British Museum online catalogue