In his will, Field Marshal Sir Robert Rich, 4th Bt (1685–1768), depicted in the miniature inset on the lid of this snuffbox, bequeathed to his only daughter, Elizabeth, Lady Lyttelton (c. 1716–1795), ‘her mother’s Picture, to be taken out of my Snuffbox inlaid with Gold’ – the portrait now mounted on the underside of the lid. This inheritance prompted Lady Lyttelton to commission what was described in her will dated 1789 as ‘An oval Box chased with Trophies with the pictures of my Father and Mother in Enamel’. She acted promptly, for her father died on 1 February 1768 and the date letter mark C on the box ceased to be used in April 1768. The chased martial trophies were an apposite choice for the decoration of the snuffbox as Sir Robert’s military career had been defined by his bravery – the eye patch in the portrait covers a wound he probably received at the battle of Blenheim in 1704. The maker’s mark on the snuffbox is not recorded at Goldsmiths’ Hall. This could be either because it was never registered or because it was among those marks recorded in the missing smallworkers’ register covering the years 1739–1758. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to suggest an attribution to James Bellis, who was listed as a goldsmith in the Westminster Poll of 1749 and again in a list drawn up by a parliamentary commission in 1773. At the time of his death in 1788 he was described in The Gentleman’s Magazine as ‘formerly a jeweller and toyman in Pall Mall’. The miniature of Sir Robert Rich is based on a full-length portrait by William Aikman. It was painted by Swedish-born Charles Boit (1662–1727), one of the most accomplished enamel painters of the period who spent a significant part of his career in England. He met with considerable success – Horace Walpole observed that Boit’s prices ‘are not to be believed’ – but despite this he fled the country in 1714 with debts unpaid. The miniature of Lady Rich, née Elizabeth Griffith (d. 1773), who married Sir Robert in 1710, is by the Dresden-born artist Christian Friedrich Zincke (1683/5–1767). Zincke travelled to England in 1706 upon the invitation of Charles Boit, to collaborate on a large-scale enamel commemorating the battle of Blenheim that the Swede had undertaken. Boit’s hasty departure from England left Zincke with an open field as an enamel portraitist. George Vertue noted that by 1726 Zincke had ‘more persons of distinction daily sitting to him than any Painter living’, and that George II ‘took more pleasure in setting [sic] to him than he did to any painter for that his works were beautiful & like’.⁵ Zincke’s attempts to manage demand by increasing his fees appear to have met with limited success. His studio continued to be active after he retired in 1752.

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