This miniature by John Hoskins is one of his most accomplished works and shows the mature artist working in his most confident manner. Hoskins adopts some of the best traits of earlier miniaturists like Isaac Oliver, such as the heavily stippled, individually rendered strands of hair, and adds his own, distinctive and slightly poetic stamp with a luminous cloud-filled sky background and distant landscape beyond to the left. Although his mature style is distinctive, Hoskins's work has on occasion been confused with that of his contemporary, Peter Oliver (1594?-1647), but a signed and dated version of this miniature (Sothebys, London, 30 June 1980, lot 81) establishes beyond doubt that this is a work by Hoskins himself. A replica, unsigned but also by Hoskins, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (P.24-1942). James Stuart, 4th Duke of Lennox, created Duke of Richmond (1641). He was a cousin of Charles I and a loyal follower of the Royalist cause.