Budai seated cross-legged holding an apple. The engine-turned gilt-metal mount with a London enamel cover painted with a bouquet of flowers.

St. James’s boxes as opposed to scent bottles are extremely rare. Only one other example of this model is recorded in the collection of M. and Mme Gerald Panchaud, Lausanne, Switzerland[i].

G.E. Bryant writing in 1925 noted that Chelsea boxes (St James’s and Chelsea boxes had not then been identified as separate categories) had covers in Battersea enamel, agate, jasper or glass etc. but never porcelain.

Our box next to a Chinese, Dehua, figure of Budai, second half of the 17th century

Budai is a popular name given to the Chinese Buddhist monk Qici who is often identified a Maitreya Buddha and is usually depicted smiling with a pronounced belly.

Figures of Budai were popular in soapstone, wood and ceramic. The St James’s figure could have been adapted from a Chinese Dehua blanc-de-chine model such as the one illustrated above.

[i] Beaucamp-Markowsky 1985 no. 508 and in colour p. 557. Described here as Chelsea, this was before the distinction between the works of these factories had been established.

Condition:
Good, no restoration

Provenance:
The Stanley F. Goldfein Collection

References:

Beaucamp-Markowsky 1985
Beaucamp-Markowsky, Boîtes en Porcelaine des manufactures européennes au 18e siècle, (French edition, Les Editions de l’Amateur, Switzerland, 1985)

Bryant 1925
G.E. Bryant, The Chelsea Porcelain Toys, London 1925

Price: £10,000