The celebrated Italian castrato Carlo Broschi (1705-1782) whose stage name was Farinelli, came to London in 1734 and joined Senisino's company, the Opera of the Nobility at a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This company had Porpora as composer and Senesino as principal singer, but had not been a success during its first season of 1733-34. Farinelli, Porpora's most famous pupil, joined the company and made it financially solvent. Such was Farinelli's charisma on stage, that Charles Burney reported that when Senesino and Farinelli performed together, with Senesino as a furious tyrant and Farinelli the hero in chains: 'the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage-character, ran to Farinelli and embraced him as his own.'

Born in Naples, Farinelli achieved quasi-mythological status and fame in his lifetime for the extraordinary range and quality of his voice, his breath control, and his androgynous beauty. He made his name first in Naples, then Rome and Bologna. For his first performance in Venice was in 1728 at the fashionable San Giovanni Grisotomo theatre the twenty three year-old singer received a rapturous reception. He then proceeded to tour Europe, earning the title 'Singer of Kings.' He performed at all the main courts of Europe and was requested to sing for King Louis XV of France at the Queen's apartments, for which he received the rare and distinguished honour of a portrait of the King embossed with diamonds, and a fee of 500 livres. Despite his success in England, historians feel that the enormous rivalry between the Covent Garden Opera House run by Handel and the Nobles Theatre put Farinelli under a considerable amount of pressure and encouraged him to accept the King of Spain's offer in 1737 to become his Private Councillor and musical director at the royal chapel. With the death of Ferdinand VI and the accession of Charles III in autumn 1759, Farinelli was granted a generous pension but was asked to leave Spain. He returned to Italy and settled in Bologna where he died.

The Dresden-born artist of this miniature Christian Friedrich Zincke (1683/4-1767) was apprenticed to his father as a goldsmith but also studied portrait painting under Heinrich-Christophe Fehling. He came to England in 1706 where he worked for the Swedish oil and enamel painter Charles Boit (1662-1772) on a large enamel to commemorate the 1704 Battle of Blenheim. Zincke became successful in his own right in the 1720s for his miniatures after oils by Kneller, Lely and others, and from life. In London he attracted fashionable clientele including George II and Queen Caroline, and painted several enamels for Sir Robert Walpole. He retired by 1752 and died at South Lambeth, 24th March 1767.