A half-length portrait to left in a dark doublet with gold buttons and a fur-trimmed coat of the same material, ornamented with jewels. He wears the collar of the Garter (appointed 1551) and a hat with jewels.

Clinton held high positions through four reigns. He was a royal ward and later courtier of Henry VIII and, after active service against the Scots and French from 1540, became Lord Admiral to Edward VI in 1550. Although Queen Mary deprived him office in 1553 for involvement in the attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, she reappointed him in 1558 after other services. He remained Lord Admiral under Elizabeth, actively into the 1560s and thereafter as a member of the Queen's council. He quelled the rising of the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in 1570 and she created him Earl of Lincoln in 1572, employing him on diplomatic missions to France. He was also an investor in voyages of privateering and colonization. He had a stake in Drake's round-the-world voyage of 1577-80 and probably in Humphrey Gilbert's expedition to America, 1578. When the latter failed he was one of those charged with enquiry into the causes.

This portrait was formerly in the collection of the Earl of Lincoln but not from an early date, since he inherited it from the 7th Duke of Newcastle: it was purchased by the Museum at auction (Christie's, London) on 31 January 1939. It is a contemporary copy of one painted about 1575, possibly by Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616).