One of a set of three – there were two smaller examples of the same shape and decoration as pendants to this piece. The shape was sold from the Vincennes factory without lids so that flowers, real or made of porcelain and fitted on metal stems, would be placed the mouths of the vases down the centre of a dining table.

This example bears the painter’s marks for Vincent Taillandier. The two smaller ones that are also in stock appear to come from the famous centrepiece purchased in Paris in 1755 by an English Lord. A pair also probably from the same centrepiece is in the collection of the Norwich Castle Museum, Norfolk, UK.