Charles Boit

Boit was the son of a merchant from France who had emigrated to Sweden. In Stockholm he trained as a gold smith from 1677 to 1682, before working in Paris and Gothenburg for three years. In 1685 he returned to Stockholm and trained as an enamel painter with Arvid Karlsteen. Two years later he left his homeland once again, this time for London, where William III appointed him court enamellist. In 1699 he worked in The Hague, and in the following year he worked at the courts in Düsseldorf and Vienna. He returned to London in 1703, but fled to France to escape his creditors in 1715. In Paris he was accepted into the Royal Academy in 1717. He spent the last years of his life in Paris, except for a journey to Dresden in 1719/20. Boit worked both in enamel and in watercolour.