Jacopo Amigoni trained in Venice and worked in Munich for the court of Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, before arriving in England in 1729, where he remained for ten years, interrupted only by a visit to France in 1736. In England, he first became known for his history paintings, with his most accomplished decorative scheme being a series of large canvases from the Story of Jupiter and Io at Moor Park Mansion, Herefordshire. It was noted by George Vertue in a 1734 notebook entry that Amigoni had:

‘never practisd. [portraiture] before he came to England. But haveing a pleasant invention and disposition of his draperyes. his mixture of little cupids the tenderness of Colouring all together had something pleasant and new. that the Courtiers and quality, pressd him, to imploy him in portraits, which he seem'd to have an excusefull reluctance to comply with for want of other business in History especially large workes’ (‘Vertue’s Note Book A. f. [British Museum, Add. MS. 23,076]’, The Volume of the Walpole Society, XXII, 1933, p. 75).

Much of his portraiture in this time was produced at the court of King George II, including his Portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales painted in 1735 (Royal Collection Trust, last at Carlton House, London, inv. no. RCIN 401500) and his Portrait of Wilhelmina of Brandenbrug-Ansbach (National Portrait Gallery, London, inv. no. NPG 4332), painted in the same year.

The present painting depicts Richard Lumley (1686-1740), 2nd Earl of Scarbrough, wearing the robes of the Order of the Garter: a blue velvet mantle with a red sash, the collar alternating heraldic knots and medallions with a rose encircled by the garter, and suspended from it the Great George—a figure of St. George the Martyr on horseback. His Tudor bonnet with a plume rests on the table beside him. Scarborough, a Whig politician, succeeded to his father’s titles and seat in the House of Lords in 1721. Loyal to King George II, who regarded him as a friend, he was appointed a Knight of the Garter on 9 July 1724 and later a member of the Privy Council in 1727. Scarborough resigned from his court post in 1734, allowing the portrait to be dated between 1729 and 1734, when Amigoni was in England, and Scarborough still an active Knight of the Order.

At upper left the painting bears the inscription ‘INCORRUPTA FIDES, NUDAQUE VERITAS. / QUANDO ULLUM INVENIENT PAREM?' [Incorruptible faith (or fidelity), the sister of Justice, and naked truth. When will they ever find their equal?], a quote from Horace’s Odes (I, xxiv, 7-8) that was frequently adopted as a motto to signify integrity, honor and loyalty.