Although Nicholas Hilliard painted members of Queen Elizabeth I’s court, he also accepted commissions from customers who visited his shop in the City of London. Few of his sitters’ names are inscribed on their miniatures, and so many persons depicted are now therefore impossible to identify. This unknown young man, with his gold earring, rakish beard and long curl, seems the epitome of an Elizabethan gentleman. Dateable to the same year as Hilliard’s celebrated Young Man Clasping a Hand from a Cloud, this portrait demonstrates a simple alternative to the complex symbolism of many court portraits.