The present miniature compares with a series of portraits by Isaac Oliver of Essex following his return from the capture of Cadiz in 1596 when he grew a beard. Its corresponding ‘pattern’ portrait, and possibly the ad vivum sketch from which Oliver painted replicas, is at the Yale Center from British Art, Connecticut (see P. Noon, English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1979, p. 4, no. 2, illustrated fig. 2). A finished oval head and shoulders miniature of the same composition is in the British Royal Collection (see G. Reynolds, Portrait Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 1999, p. 85, no. 49, illustrated in colour). Essex is shown here at the period of his greatest favour by Queen Elizabeth I.