This bronze statuette represents James II as Roman Emperor, with Roman armor and laurel wreath. It is a variant of the bronze statue situated on Trafalgar Square in London. This statue, originally erected in the Privy Gardens, Whitehall in 1685, was made after designs by Grinling Gibbons and modelled and cast by two of his collaborators: Peter van Dievoet from Brussels and Laurens van der Meulen from Mechelen.

The careers of Peter van Dievoet and Laurens van der Meulen require further research and this statuette could possibly have been made by one of them in relation with the statue now on Trafalgar Square. No other small scale independent sculpture by either of them is known. A small group of preparatory drawings studies for the statue of James II at the British Museum (incl. 1889,0603.254.1), previously considered as by Gibbons, have now been proposed to be by the hand of Peter van Dievoet.

Traditionally, this small bronze statuette had been attributed to Arnoldus Quellinus III (Arnold Quellin), another of Gibbons's collaborators.The statuette shows indeed similarities with other sculptures documented to Quellin, in particular with his statue of Charles II at the guildhall. Although Quellin is not known to have worked on the statue of James II now on Trafalgar Square, he was comissioned other sculptures of James II to which this statuette might alternatively be related.