Charles Boit, attributed to

Charles Boit was apprenticed to a goldsmith and jeweller in Stockholm. In 1682 he spent three months in Paris, where he is thought to have studied the enamels of Jean Petitot I and Jacques Bordier. He arrived in England in 1687 at the invitation of merchant John Sowter who had earlier invited the Swedish portrait painter Michael Dahl to England. Boit was later appointed Court Enameler to William III. Boit travelled in Europe from 1699 to 1703, visiting the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and France. In Austria he made a large enamel on copper of the ‘Emperor Leopold I and his Family’ (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Back in England he begun work on a similarly large enamel to commemorate the Battle of Blenheim (1704), but fled the country in 1714 when he could not complete the project settled in Paris.

The present work show close resemblance to the appearance of Madame de Montespan, the most celebrated maîtresse-en-titre of King Louis XIV, by whom she had seven children. Born into one of the oldest noble families of France, the House of Rochechouart, Madame de Montespan was called by some the "true Queen of France"' during her romantic relationship with Louis XIV, due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court during that time. Her so-called "reign" lasted from around 1667, when she first danced with Louis XIV at a ball hosted by the king's younger brother, Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, at the Louvre Palace, until her alleged involvement in the notorious Affaire des Poiisons in the late 1670s to 1680s. Her immediate contemporary Barbara Villiers, mistress of King Charles II of England. She is an ancestress of several royal houses in Europe, including those of Spain, Bulgaria, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The woman portrayed can hardly be above the age of 30. If indeed it depicts Madame Montespan, consequently it must have been painted during Boit’s visit to Paris in 1682. The octagonal form of the enamel is unusual. During the second half of the seventeenth century, this format, however, was very popular in France in the making of portrait engravings.