King William III

This portraitback to top

Comparable Boit enamels of William III include those in the Royal Collection [1] and at Welbeck. [2] Attributed examples are in the Rijksmuseum (A4300), at Frederiksborg (A5867, A5560) and sold Christie’s, 25 July 1967, lot 90.
Boit was made the King’s Court Enamellist from 1696, a new Household appointment and one he retained under Queen Anne. He had been in Lincoln and Coventry 1693-94, and his miniatures of William III are likely to date between 1696 and 1699, when he left to travel in Europe until 1703. [3]

Footnotesback to top

1) G. Reynolds, The sixteenth and seventeenth-century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, 1999, no.405.
2) R. W. Goulding, ‘The Welbeck Abbey Miniatures’, Wal. Soc., IV, 1916, no.96; the attribution doubted by W. Nisser, Michael Dahl, 1927, cat. p 118, no.35.
3) For Boit’s travels, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and W. Nisser, Michael Dahl, 1927, p 144.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 379.

Provenanceback to top

Frank T. Sabin, from whom purchased 1914.

Exhibitionsback to top

Princes and Palaces, Twickenham, 1973–74.


This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685–1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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