He is referred to as "little Dick, my lord Chamberlain's page" in notebooks recording a number of copies he made of existing paintings in royal and aristocratic collections.

Herbert was his most important early patron, and may have introduced him to Peter Lely, with whom Gibson would enjoy a close and productive relationship.

The event was the occasion of a poem by Edmund Waller, in which the pair are described as literally made for each other ("Design or chance make others wive, / But nature did this match contrive").

The Grove Dictionary of Art states that "the miniatures assigned to Gibson are characterized by the thick pigment and parallel striations that give his work an impastoed quality".

Art historians John Murdoch and V. J. Murrell say that the distinguishing feature of Gibson's style is the "diagonal striation in the flesh painting".

Even by the naked eye, the coloured strokes of the brush over the carnation ground can be seen to consist of long broad hatches, which have often the tendency, especially in the flat plane of the forehead and the shadowing of the throat below the chin line, to move in diagonal parallel groups of hatches, stroked downwards from right to left....[Gibson's paint] is "impasted" in the manner of oil painting and is quite different from the traditionally transparent and linear technique of the limners.

Marvell suggests that Gibson should paint miniaturised epic works about events, to represent the minuscule achievements of the real admirals and statesmen in the war.

Lely could not paint the works because he is tainted by his own Dutch origin, but Gibson represents authentically tiny English aspirations.

The "DG" miniatures appear to date from the artist's early career when no examples of his work with his usual "RG" monogram are known.