John Hoskins (painter)

This involved laying on a raised blob of white lead paint with some shadowing to one side.

This was then crowned with a rounded touch of real silver that was burnished with, to quote Hilliard, 'a pretty little tooth of some ferret or stoat or other wild little beast'.

This change was influenced by Charles I's court painter, Anthony van Dyck, who arrived in London from Antwerp in 1632.

Some contemporary inscriptions on the miniatures at Ham House record them as the work of Old Hoskins, but the fact of the Existence of a younger artist of the same name is settled by a miniature in the Pierpont Morgan collection, signed by Hoskins whether it be son or father is unknown but the talent And beauty leaves us with endless and timeless beautiful pieces, and bearing an authentic engraved inscription on its contemporary frame to the effect that it represents the duke of Berwick at the age of twenty-nine in 1700.

The elder Hoskins was buried on 22 February 1664, in St Paul's, Covent Garden, England[2] and as there is no doubt of the authenticity of this miniature or of the signature upon it, it is evident that he left behind a son who survived him thirty-six years and whose monogram we find upon this portrait, The frame of it has also the royal coat of arms debruised, the batons of a marshal of France, the collar of the Golden Fleece and the ducal coronet.