H.M.S. Carcass with the young Nelson aboard and H.M.S. Racehorse searching for the North West Passage in 1773

Horatio Nelson began his naval career in March 1771 when he joined his uncle's ship Raisonnable as a Midshipman. This posting proved a short one and, with England at peace with her neighbours, employment for a young and inexperienced seaman was difficult to find. Nevertheless, his uncle used what influence he had and, in May 1773, Nelson was appointed Coxswain to the bomb vessel Carcass, then fitting out at Sheerness and preparing to accompany H.M.S. Racehorse on an expedition to the Arctic in a fresh attempt to find the so-called North West Passage into the Pacific. Back home by October the same year, the experience proved very worthwhile for Nelson including, as it did, his celebrated encounter with a polar bear on the pack-ice. Immortalised in Richard Westall's 1809 painting of the incident, Nelson - whose musket had misfired - was only saved from certain tragedy by a timely crack in the ice and a warning shot from Carcass.

John Cleveley, Jun. was the official artist on this expedition and it is recorded that he exhibited two "tinted drawings" of Arctic subjects in the 1774 Royal Academy exhibition. It is possible that this work is one of them.