Traditionally this miniature has been identified as a portrait of Sidney Godolphin. Godolphin was the son of Sir William Godolphin (d.1613) and his wife Thomasin (d.1611/2). Lord Clarendon, who wrote of Godolphin in his The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon (published in 1857), observing that 'the very remarkableness of his little person, made the sharpness of his wit and the composed quickness of his judgement and understanding, the more notable...'

In 1628 Godolphin was elected a Member of Parliament for Helston, but spent the succeeding twelve years travelling on the Continent. Upon his return to England in 1640, he re-entered politics and sat in the House of Commons during the Long Parliament. In the build up to the civil war he adamantly opposed military confrontation. Despite this, when the conflict erupted he joined the Royalist forces at Dartmoor. In February 1643 he was mortally wounded during a skirmish at Chagford. Godolphin was also a noted poet and several surviving manuscripts exist in the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the British Library, London.

It has been suggested that the present work was executed circa 1642. Samuel Cooper, called the 'Prince of Limners' by John Aubrey (1626-1697), had established himself as an independent artist by this date, having studied under his uncle, John Hoskins. The present work shows the confident hand of the artist, by now a fully-fledged master, who is rightly credited with incorporating the innovations in portrait miniature painting, combining the style of Sir Anthony Van Dyck with the exhuberant traditional style of miniature painting that had existed since the reign of Henry VIII.