This is a head and shoulders portrait of Lazzaro Spinola, facing three-quarters to the right, dressed in black with a white ruff, light-brown hair, moustache and beard. The painting is inscribed with the date 1566, and gives the sitter's age as 22.

The most well-known member of the Spinola family was Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630) who was marshal of the army of the King of Spain during the Eighty Years War. It was to Spinola that Breda was surrendered in 1625. Van der Doort (Surveyor of Charles I's Pictures) suggested that the sitter in this portrait was uncle to Ambrogio Spinola, and this is reflected in an old label on the back of the painting which reads ' Lazarus Spinola / Uncle to Spinola / Governor of the Low / Countries By Key'.