This inkstand is composed of a set of soft-paste porcelain plaques made in a specific set of sizes to be mounted in gilt-bronze with an oak carcass. Similar examples are in other major collections, for example in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, England.

On this example some plaques bear the date letter P for 1768 and the painter’s mark of P. Parpette. One smaller plaque is clearly a replacement with marks indicating a date of circa 1793-1800.