CLEOPATRA'S BOUDOIR

Chamart (JOHN R. WALKER CO.) was an importing company that originally started in the early  1950's  by Charles Martine, hence the name "Chamart". They specialized in fine dinnerware, hand painted ceramics, replica and unusual perfume bottles and crystal.

Chamart is a contraction of the name of its founder, Charles Martine, one of the "personalities" of the gift and tabletop business. As the result of the devastation inflicted on France by World War II, there was little product to import; only Haviland imported French porcelain - and only its own product. Martine was the first to bring a variety of French porcelains into the U.S. He created the company in the early 1950's and moved to 225 Fifth Avenue, where it remains as one of the building's oldest tenants.

It was not until 1965 that Chamart started developing all handpainted museum quality Limoges boxes as pieces for the coffee table and he introduced the Limoges Box to the American market, designing a collection for Tiffany & Company. The line developed slowly and over the last thirty five years has evolved into Limoges boxes as we know them today. It was immensely popular and quickly became the cornerstone of Chamart's business.

Chamart still carries an enormous variety in addition to its boxes: full lines of bath and boudoir accessories, stationery accessories, dinnerware, handpainted ceramics and decorative items - all, of course, from France. But it's the boxes, those tiny fantasies frozen in delicate porcelain, for which Chamart will be forever known.

It is possible to find Chamart perfume bottles and atomizers on the internet, the pieces had labels which read Chamart France. People often think that Chamart was an actual perfume company, but they weren't. They imported the bottles from France and sold them into the USA. This was part of a collection of Perfume Bottles made in the Normandy region of  France . Chamart distributed them in the US in the 60’s 70’s and early 80’s.  This bottle is now made exclusively for Annick Goutal in Paris.

I often find them being sold with out their labels, and many times they are called antiques. They aren't antiques, they would be considered vintage. Sometimes the bottles are often sold as Czechoslovakian, but again, they were made in France. Ones very similar to this were also made for and given away as incentives by the Yves Rocher cosmetics company in the 1980s & early 1990s, mainly in pink frosted glass but they had white as well.

All of the perfumes I have seen are frosted and in various colors such as pink, opalescent,  clear and blue. i will add more pictures as I come across them.