Lot 4: Charles Boit (Swedish, 1663-1727) Anne (1665-1714), Queen of England (1702-1714), wearing yellow robe trimmed with ermine and the Insignia of the Order of the Garter on a blue ribbon around her neck, her curling brown hair worn long

Anne (1665-1714), Queen of England (1702-1714), wearing yellow robe trimmed with ermine and the Insignia of the Order of the Garter on a blue ribbon around her neck, her curling brown hair worn long.
Enamel, silver-gilt frame, the scalloped border set with rose-cut diamonds.
Circular, 40mm (1 9/16in) dia.

Boit's first commissions on in his return to London in 1703 were from Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen Anne. The present lot, is based on the portrait of Queen Anne by Sir Godfrey Kneller, or which the best version, signed and dated 1705 is at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire. Another version by Boit, though oval in format, unlike the present unusual circular format, is in the Royal Collection, see G. Reynolds, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 1999, p.271, no.394. Boit is recorded as having been paid £26.17s.6d for one of his enamels of the Queen.

Anne was the daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Having spent several years of her childhood and adolescence in France, where she was initially cared for by her paternal grandmother, Queen Henrietta Maria, and then by her aunt, the Duchesse d'Orléans, Princess Anne was nevertheless raised as a Protestant by the express wishes of her uncle, King Charles II. It was whilst she was in her late teens that she made the acquaintance of Sarah Jennings (subsequently Duchess of Marlborough) who would go on to become one of her most important and influential advisors.

In 1685, Anne's father succeeded his brother as King James II. Married to an Italian Catholic princess, Mary of Modena, and a convert to the Catholic faith, James was wildly unpopular with the British people. When, in 1688, the queen gave birth to a healthy son and heir (James Edward Stuart, known to history as the Old Pretender), Anne's Protestant brother-in-law, William of Orange, invaded England and deposed James in the so-called Glorious Revolution. Thereafter, he ruled as King William III in a unique arrangement which granted him joint sovereignty with his wife, Mary, who was Anne's older sister.

When William died without an heir in 1702, the Bill of Rights ensured that the crown passed to Anne herself. Plump, shy and often in very poor health, the new monarch suffered from an addiction to brandy and so was nicknamed 'Brandy Nan' by contemporary wags. Although she lacked the charisma and strong personal style of other queen regnants, Anne was generally well-intentioned and she presided over a vibrant, witty and elegant England, peopled by such luminaries as Defoe, Swift, Pope, Vanbrugh and Wren. However, her political judgements were often conditioned by her overbearing friend Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who was by now married to the brilliant general, John Churchill. The relationship between the two women was notoriously stormy and finally ended around 1710, when Sarah tried the queen's patience beyond endurance. By this time, Anne was beset by troubles: her numerous children had all perished in infancy, her dull but devoted husband, Prince George of Denmark, had died in 1708 and there was considerable strife in Parliament, where the two-party system of Whigs and Tories was slowly evolving. Her eventual demise from suppressed gout in 1714 was something of a release for this much-tried and unhappy monarch, one commentator writing that 'sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her'. The last of the Stuarts, Anne was succeeded by her distant Hanoverian cousin, George I (see lot 30).

It is interesting to compare the present lot with the similar portrait by Boit's pupil Christian Friedrich Zincke painted approximately ten years later also included in this sale (see lot 7).