Elinor Dorrance Ingersoll (1907-1977), to whom these jade figures belonged, was one of the heirs of John. T Dorrance, the chemist who invented condensed soup in 1897 and started the well-known American company Campbell Soups. Her famous chateau-style home in Newport, Rhode Island, Bois Doré, designed by New York architect Charles Platt in 1927, has been described as the last great home built in Newport. Upon Ingersoll’s death, the house was sold to the oil heiress Carolyn Mary Skelly, and the contents, including Chinese porcelain and works of art, fine European furniture and paintings, were sold in a house sale by Christie’s in 1977.