A Life Etched in Miniature: The World of Sir John Hoskins The name Sir John Hoskins resonates through the annals of English portraiture, though perhaps less familiarly today than it once did. Born in Wells, Somerset, around 1589 or 1590, Hoskins wasn’t merely a painter; he was a pivotal figure in the transition from the meticulous detail of Elizabethan miniature painting to the more fluid styles that would characterize the later Stuar…