Born in Germany, Godfrey Kneller trained as an artist in the Netherlands and Italy, before settling in England in 1676. His production was immense and many of his portraits rank as high as any painting in this genre produced in all of Europe during his time. In England, Kneller experimented with a wide variety of colours as is evident by the pink he employed to fashion the man’s clothing. Kneller excelled in producing portraits of male sitters. The artist turned ill in 1722, and died the next year, making this one of the last portraits he produced.