This miniature has been so extensively repainted in the area of the face as to be a vestige of the fine miniature which once occupied a prime position in the Tribune at Strawberry Hill where Horace Walpole displayed the most prized miniatures in his collection. Placed by Walpole next to a miniature of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, it was dubbed by him: 'Frances his wife, daughter of Sir Francis Walshingham, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and lastly wife of the earl of Clanrickard and Saint Albans'. Evidence of the original quality of the work, and its authorship by Nicholas Hilliard, have been discerned by Graham Reynolds in two areas unaffected by overpaint: the lace headdress of the sitter and the hand with its characteristically lengthened fingers. The miniature probably dates from c. 1590, when Frances Walsingham married her second husband, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.