This signed miniature by John Hoskins is one of four versions of a miniature painted c. 1620 and described consistently in each case as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset. The sitter, a favourite of James I, came with the king from Scotland to London in 1603. He was created Knight of the Garter (1611), Earl of Somerset (1613) and Lord Chamberlain and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (1614). He married in 1613 Frances Howard, Countess of Essex and became her associate in a plot to poison Sir Thomas Overbury, whom she believed had slandered her, by the administration of poison. The Earl and Countess were found guilty of murder and imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1616-22, the period from which this miniature must date. Somerset's incarceration at this period has been given as a reason for the absence from this portrait of the ribbon of the Garter, which he would have been entitled to wear from 1611. Signed in gold on the left: IH (monogram).