Oval head-and-shoulders miniature of Admiral George Churchill, to sitter's left but with the head turned to face the viewer, in an oval gilt metal suspension frame with a label scroll below reading 'ADMIRAL CHURCHILL. / BY BOIT.' It is also signed on the reverse; 'C. Boit pinxt.' The miniature is executed in enamel on ceramic and shows Churchill in a full-bottomed wig and purple coat, with a white neck cloth.

Churchill was the younger brother of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, though (unlike him) a Tory in his politics rather than a Whig. He had an active junior career as a lieutenant and captain, and in 1688 made an astute move in becoming leader of the first major naval defection to support the 'Glorious Revolution' that put William of Orange on the throne as William III, in place of his father-in-law James II. He fought at the resultant battles of Beachy Head and Barfleur, against James's attempts to regain his crown with French help, and in 1699-1702 was a commissioner of the Admiralty, though promoted to rear-admiral only in 1701. His influence as a naval adviser thereafter remained great until the death in 1708 of Queen Anne's husband and Lord Admiral, Prince George of Denmark.

Churchill never commanded a fleet at sea but was notorious for considerably enriching himself from emoluments of office. The Museum also has a fine oil portrait of him by Kneller (BHC2611), one of the set of senior admirals painted for Queen Anne and Prince George by Kneller and Michael Dahl - both immigrant court painters, the former German and the latter Swedish. Boit (1662-1727), the artist, was also born in Stockholm of French parentage and became a master of the largely French art of enamel painting, which he pioneered in England from 1687. Here he became a protege of Dahl and copied some of his and Kneller's portraits in enamel, as well as doing miniatures in it from life. He worked in the Netherlands, Germany and Vienna from 1699 to 1703, then again in England until 1714, but spent his last years in Paris. This miniature was until 1941 in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. In the later 18th century it is known to have been the property of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, who recorded that it previously belonged to Mrs Dunch, daughter of Arabella Churchill and her husband Charles Godfrey.