The National Portrait website records that this portrait:
'commemorates Bolingbroke’s brief ambassadorship in Paris in August 1712. He is shown wearing the coronation robes of a Viscount, an honour he had received the previous month; on the table lie state papers addressed to the Queen (Queen Anne) and a plan of fortifications, probably those of Dunkirk whose reduction played a prominent part in his negotiations/ The papers may indicate that the portrait was completed within Queen Anne’s lifetime (i.e. before August 1714)'.
For a full description and reference notes please visit the National Portrait Gallery website.