A three-quarter-length portrait facing slightly to right in a brown cloth coat and waistcoat, the coat lined with pink silk. Both have gilt buttons with gold embroidered buttonholes. He wears a dark brown full-bottomed wig and holds a sword in his right hand. The 'Torbay', 80 guns, is in the left background, red at the fore, with boats around her.

Sir Thomas Hopsonn is best remembered for his services at Vigo Bay in 1702, when as vice-admiral of the red squadron in the 'Torbay', he broke the boom and led the allies into the French fleet, taking a principal and very gallant part in the ensuing action. Hopsonn was left to bear the enemy's fire until the supporting ships could hack their way through the boom to assist him. The 'Torbay' was severely damaged and would have perished by fire if the explosion of a Spanish ship alongside, laden with snuff, had not partially extinguished the flames. The snuff captured at Vigo popularized the habit of taking it in England. Hopsonn was governor of Greenwich Hospital from 1704 to 1708. This portrait is one of a series commissioned for the Royal Collection at the time of Queen Anne and presented to Greenwich Hospital by George IV in 1824.

The Swedish painter travelled to London in 1682 where he became acquainted with Godfrey Kneller. In 1685, he left for Europe and returned to London in 1689 where he remained. During Dahl's absence, Kneller consolidated his supremacy as the fashionable portrait painter although the prolific Dahl was his closest competitor. Politically, Kneller supported the ascendant Whigs while Dahl was a Tory. The death of Kneller in 1723 left Dahl the principal London portraitist.