This highly stylized portrait shows her fascination for the elaborate detailing of Hughes's naval uniform: by contrast, the representation of the ‘Somerset’ is poor, even for a painter not specialising in ships. It is inscribed 'Violante Betrix Siries/de Cerrotis fecit Florenine/anno 1761' on a stone lying below Hughes's left hand on the edge of the quay. Siries appears to have done a smaller head-and-shoulders version for Hughes at the same time (since it is also reported as signed and dated 1761 on the back). The only differences are a dark background and that he is shown holding a telescope in his right hand. He may have ordered that one as a potential gift and it is likely both canvases were shipped to England together for him on completion, as the case with many other 'Grand Tour' artworks and antiquities collected in Italy at the time. Francesco Moucke's 1762 commentary on portraitists represented in the 'Galleria Imperiale', Florence, specifically mentions the full-length as one of three fine examples of Siries' work and the one 'ultimamente partiti in Inghilterra' ('lately gone to England'). Since it is still in a fine Italian carved poplar frame, presumed to be original, that was probably supplied at the same time.

Hughes saw long service in 1773-1778, and again in 1779-1783, as Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies, most of this during the War of American Independence. He was knighted in 1778 and in its later stages fought five hard actions against the French off India (1782-1783). He returned home immensely rich from the perquisites of the command but lived in unshowy retirement thereafter. His substantial figure when an admiral appears in Sir Joshua Reynolds's later portrait of 1786 in the Greenwich Hospital collection, (BHC2972). This too shows him full-length holding a letter, turned to viewer's left, a pose perhaps chosen to complement the present picture. While recorded as 'The bequest of the Admiral to Greenwich Hospital' it is not mentioned in his will and is presumed to have been an informal one via his widow. Both of them, and her two Ball sons are buried at Lambourne, Essex, where Hughes's inscription gives his age at death on 17th January 1794 as 77. Given that he was the eldest child and his parents married in July 1715, he is likely to have been born in 1716.