Art Encyclopedia:
William Larkin
(b London, c. 1585; d London, 1619). English painter. Larkin is among the most enigmatic of English portrait painters in an age that is more notable for the obscurity of its artists than virtually any other. It is almost certain that he was the son of an innkeeper named William Larkin and lived in the parish of St Sepulchre. His father was a close neighbour of Robert Peake, the portrait painter to Henry, Prince of Wales, and it may have been Peake who introduced Larkin to painting. However, both Nicholas Hilliard (1983 exh. cat.) and, more plausibly, Isaac Oliver (Finsten, 1981) have been suggested as the source of Larkin's art.
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