This distinctive model of salt-cellar are based on an 1806 design by Adrien-Louis-Marie-Cavelier (see J.-M. Pinçon and O. Gaube de Gers, Odiot, l'Orfévre, 1990, p. 93). It was used and adapted first by Jean-Claude Baptiste Odiot and later his son Charles Nicholas, becoming one of the firm's most popular designs. Odiot also used entwined dolphins on a tureen, circa 1808, and on silver-gilt sauceboats of 1806 which formed part of the service made for Madame Mére, Laetitia Bonaparte (op.cit., pp. 72 and 117).
A set of four double salts by Odiot, similar to the present examples, were sold in the Partridge Collection, Christie's New York, 17 May 2006, lot 196, while a Dutch set of two double and four single salts form part of an extensive table-service presented to Mr. I.J.A. Gogel in 1803-1804 and which is now preserved in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
A pair of identical single salts is in a private Dutch collection (see Pijzel-Domisse, et al., Haags goud en zilver, Zwolle, 2005, p. 205, ill 163, p. 258, no. 71.)