Charles Boit, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1715

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Charles Boit, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1715,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 1, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.2206.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Charles Boit, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1715,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 1, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.2206.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This portrait of an unknown woman is by Swedish enameller Charles Boit, whose enamel miniatures captivated the English court. Boit likely painted this miniature around 1715, during his heyday in England, where he spent about twenty-two years of his career.¹ He probably modeled it after an oil portrait either by his Swedish compatriot Michael Dahl (1659–1743), who helped him attain prominence in England, or by court painter Sir Godfrey Kneller (English, 1646–1723)—although Boit also painted from life.

The fair-haired sitter resembles Sarah Churchill (née Jennings), Duchess of Marlborough, the highly influential favorite of Queen Anne, but this identification is difficult to confirm, as many portraits from this era follow beauty ideals of the period, with a rounded face set off by heavy-lidded eyes and rosebud lips.² Moreover, Churchill stopped sitting for portraits entirely around 1708, so if this miniature does in fact depict her, Boit would have copied it after an earlier example, such as Kneller’s three-quarter length oil painting dating to the 1690s at Petworth House, Sussex.³

Vivid pink, applied with Boit’s signature careful stippling, not only simulates fashionably rouged cheeks but also outlines and shapes the contours of the face and upper body. The golden-brown background Boit typically used enhances the gown’s rich blue hue, which is characteristic of his saturated tones. Regardless of whether this miniature depicts Churchill or another unknown woman, likely a member of the court of King George I, it exemplifies the type of portrait Boit skillfully produced during this high point in his career.

Notes

1. Boit toured Europe between 1699 and 1703, visiting France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands before returning to England. Vanessa Remington, “Boit, Charles (1662–1727), miniature painter,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2783.

2. Boit’s student Christian Friedrich Zincke (German, ca. 1684–1767) also painted miniature portraits of Sarah Churchill, including his 1711 enamel of Churchill in the British Royal Collection, which was modeled after her portrait by Kneller at Althorp, West Northamptonshire, dated 1691 (RCIN 421962).

3. Christopher Lloyd and Vanessa Remington, Masterpieces in Little: Portrait Miniatures from the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1996), 138. The most commonly used model was a 1702 portrait by Kneller, depicting Churchill with her head dramatically tilted back, known in a copy at the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 3634). Boit’s miniature, however, more closely resembles the 1690s portrait at Petworth House (NT 486211), in which the head tilt is less pronounced. The similarities in features are most clearly visible in Kneller’s unfinished oil sketch of Churchill’s face at Althorp.

Major John McLean Griffin (1870–1957), Bourn Hall, Cambridge, by 1926 [1];

Probably purchased from his sale, Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’s, London, May 12, 1926, lot 178, as A Lady, by James Lifetree, Esq. (ca. 1861–1943), London, 1926 [2];

With Harry Seal (1873–1948), Ullesthorpe House, Leicestershire, by 1949;

Purchased from his posthumous sale, The Choice Collection of Portrait Miniatures, formed by the late Harry Seal, Esq., Christie’s, London, February 16, 1949, lot 133, as A Lady, by Leo Schidlof (1866–1966), Paris and Vienna, 1949 [3];

Probably purchased from Leo Schidlof by Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] Major McLean Griffin’s surname is sometimes alternately spelled “Maclean Griffin” and “McClean Griffin”. His name is inscribed as “Major John McLean Griffin” on his tombstone in St. Helena and St. Mary Churchyard, Bourn, Cambridge. With thanks to Maggie Keenan for her assistance with provenance research for this entry.

[2] The lot is described in the catalogue as follows: “Another, of a lady, probably by C. Boit, and of very fine work, head and shoulders facing, with long hair curling over her shoulders, in decolleté blue dress, oval, 1.8in.” The lot is annotated “Lifetree”. Mr. James Lifetree, Esq. donated several portrait miniatures to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in the 1920s. Lifetree co-owned a business, Gilt and Fancy Moulding Manufacturers, at 34, 36 and 38, Bannerstreet, London and Wusterhausen, Germany, which was dissolved on March 16, 1906. London Gazette, January 1, 1907, 69, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/27982/page/69/data.pdf.

[3] A number of miniatures in the Starr collection were acquired either directly or indirectly from the Seal sale. The lot is described as “A Lady, by Charles Boit, signed in full. Nearly full face, in décolleté blue dress, with long hair curling over her shoulders. Oval – 1 3/4 in. high – in gold frame. From the Collection of Major J. M. Griffin, 1926.”

Four Centuries of Miniature Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 19–March 19, 1950, no cat., as Portrait of a Lady.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 25, as Unknown Lady.

Catalogue of Objects of Vertu (London: Sotheby’s, May 12, 1926), 20, as A Lady.

Catalogue of The Choice Collection of Portrait Miniatures, formed by the late Harry Seal, Esq. (London: Christie’s, February 16, 1949), 25, as A Lady.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 264, as Portrait of a Lady.

Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 439.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 25, p. 14, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.