Hoskins,_John

Hoskins, John (d. 1664), English miniature painter, the uncle of Samuel Cooper, who received his artistic education in Hoskins’s house. His finest miniatures are at Ham House, Montagu House, Windsor Castle, Amsterdam and in the Pierpont Morgan collection. Vertue stated that Hoskins had a son, and Redgrave added that the son painted a portrait of James II. in 1686 and was paid £10, 5s, although it is not supported by any reference in the State Papers. Some contemporary inscriptions on the miniatures at Ham House record them as the work of “Old Hoskins,” but the fact of the existence of a younger artist of the same name is settled by a miniature in the Pierpont Morgan collection, signed by Hoskins, and bearing an authentic engraved inscription on its contemporary frame to the effect that it represents the duke of Berwick at the age of twenty-nine in 1700. The elder Hoskins was buried on the 22nd of February 1664, in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, and as there is no doubt of the authenticity of this miniature or of the signature upon it, it is evident that he had a son who survived him thirty-six years and whose monogram we find upon this portrait. The frame of it has also the royal coat of arms debruised, the batons of a marshal of France, the collar of the Golden Fleece and the ducal coronet.

(G. C. W.)

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