Andrew Fountaine (art collector)

Attending Eton College (as a King's Scholar) and then Christ Church, Oxford (graduating BA in 1697), William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire (a friend of his father) introduced him at court and he received a knighthood in 1699 for the Latin oration he had made to William III on his entry to Oxford the previous year (a task he had been selected for by Christ Church's dean Henry Aldrich).

He was in correspondence with Gottfried Leibniz between 1701 and 1704, was admitted to the Royal Society of Berlin, became friends with Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany on travelling to Italy in 1702, and was part of the mission to the States General of the Dutch Republic in 1705 (using it as an opportunity to add to his book and coin collections).

He succeeded Walter Cary as warden of the Royal Mint Aug 12 1727, but retired from London in 1732 or 1733 to redesign the family seat of Narford Hall (working with the professional architect Roger Morris).

Fountaine had rented two rooms at White's to temporarily hold his huge collection of portrait miniatures by Nicolas Hilliard, the Olivers, Samuel Cooper, and others.

The entire house burned down; the number of paintings destroyed was so large that the ashes were carefully sifted to recover the gold from the incinerated mountings of the miniatures.