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This portrait of an unknown Royalist officer shows the distinctive qualities that mark Dobson's portraiture in the first half of the 1640s. From 1642 to 1646 Dobson based himself in Oxford, the Royalists' wartime capital, as the Civil War raged throughout England. The influences of Titian and Sir Anthony Van Dyck are apparent in this portrait of a senior officer in the Royalist army. The rich texture and colour of the officer's red sash and the sheen on his armour recall the richness of Van Dyck's peacetime art, but the strain and exhaustion in the sitter's face are a vivid expression of a man and a country worn out by war. The officer's identity is unknown, although he is probably at least a regimental commander by the baton of office that he carries.