Lord Hastings is wearing the ordinary uniform of a colonel and aide-de-camp to the king, an appointment he held from 1782-93. He was the son of John, Baron Rawdon and his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Hastings. From 1775 to 1781, he served in the British army in the American War of Independence and was commended for fearlessness in 1775 at Bunker Hill, where two bullets passed through his hat. He was aide de camp to George III and commander of the expeditionary forces sent to Brittany in 1793, and he was sent to relieve Frederick, Duke of York, in Flanders in 1794. Hastings was appointed Governor General of Bengal in 1813 and governor of Malta in 1824. He was considered extravagant, generous and hospitable.

The miniature is based on the full-length portrait of the marquess by Sir Joshua Reynolds which was commissioned for his friend, Frederick, Duke of York, in 1789 and is now in the Royal Collection (RCIN 407508). The artist, William Grimaldi (1751-1830), was the son of the 7th Marquess Grimaldi and the grandson of Alessandro Maria Grimaldi, a Genoese nobleman and artist who had settled in England after the bombardment of Genoa in 1684. He succeeded to the title in 1800. Grimaldi was trained by his uncle Thomas Worlidge and worked for several years in Paris (1777-83), although he exhibited regularly in London from 1768 to 1830. He was appointed miniature painter in turn to the Duke and Duchess of York in 1791, and to George IV when Prince of Wales in 1806, and then when king in 1824.

The miniature is signed and dated along the left edge W. Grimaldi AR 1792, and inscribed by the artist on the backing paper in ink: Francis second E. of Rawdon 1st Marquis of Hastings / b. 1754 d. 1836 / painted by W. Grimaldi 1790, the last number altered in pencil to 2.