John Hoskins's earliest miniatures date from c. 1615; his early work had affinities with the styles of both Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, but underwent a marked change after the accession of Charles I in 1625, when his work took on a more contemporary feel. Hoskins became the principal miniature painter, or 'limner', at court and produced numerous miniatures of Charles I, Henrietta Maria, and key courtiers such as George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The changed political circumstances of the 1640s and 1650s led to a decline in his fortunes and he died in impoverished circumstances in 1665. Hoskins's moving portrait of Charles I was painted at about the time of the onset of the Civil War in England in 1642. It shows that the artist's powers of capturing a spirited likeness from life had not been impeded by the succession of copies in miniature after Mytens and Van Dyck which he had been been engaged in producing at court since the late 1620s. The very fact that this miniature is not dependent on an original by Van Dyck may suggest that it postdates that artist's death in 1641. The miniature is in fact the very antithesis of the majestic image of kingship purveyed by Van Dyck in his portraits of Charles I. Pensive and melancholy, this world-weary monarch seems to foresee the troubled years which would lead him to the scaffold in January 1649. Signed on the left: IH fe.