A full-length portrait, facing slightly left, of Robert Osboldston, seated at a table in a blue silk robe, lined with orange silk, and wearing a brown full-bottomed wig. He wears buckled shoes. To his right, his arm rests on a table covered with velvet, and on which an inkwell and papers are placed. He holds a quill pen in his right hand. Osboldston was a very wealthy man who was a generous benefactor to Greenwich Hospital, granting extensive lands and bequeathing it £20,000, and the dues paid by ships passing his North and South Foreland lighthouses. (The former had been rebuilt, and the latter built, by his grandfather, also called Robert, around 1658–1659, and he had inherited them from his father, William, a London mercer.) To denote this bequest, an impression of the Hospital and the river with shipping can be seen through a window to the right of the sitter.