A half-length portrait to left in a breastplate and leather coat. The sitter was one of the first to take up arms against Charles I in 1642. He commanded troops against the Royalists in the Civil War and defended Lyme Regis and afterwards Taunton for the Parliamentary cause. In 1649 he was appointed a general at sea to suppress Prince Rupert’s squadron. He later commanded the fleet in several battles against the Dutch during the first Anglo-Dutch war, 1652-53. On the declaration of war with Spain in 1656 he blockaded Cadiz and destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz. Blake died on the return voyage and his body lay in state in the Hall of the Queen’s House at Greenwich.

The author of the portrait is unknown but it may have been painted by Captain Thomas Preston for the citizens of London and is often identified as the Pelly Portrait of Admiral Robert Blake.