Kneller was born in Lubeck, studied with Rembrandt in Amsterdam and by 1676 was working in England as a fashionable portrait painter. He painted seven British monarchs (Charles II, James II, William III, Mary II, Anne, George I and George II), though his portraits of Charles II are not longer in the collection, and in 1715 was the first artist to be made a Baronet (the next was John Everett Millais in 1885). A set of portraits of naval heroes was given by George IV to the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich in 1824.

This is a work of c. 1720 painted in Kneller's bold and direct late style. By this date the sitter was Admiral of the Fleet having joined the Navy in 1678 and fought most effectively for William III and his successors against the Jacobites.

Torrington wears a long powdered periwig, a brown-red velvet collarless jacket with ornate gold buttons and a long plain white cravat.