There would appear to have been a fashion for mounting this type of vase in the early period of the reign of Louis XVI. The majority of mounts on vases such as this one are stylistically very similar. Two similar pairs of vases and a single vase from the collection of the Baroness Burton were sold in these Rooms 8 July 1965, lots 74, 75 and 76. Another garniture of three vases from the collection of Mrs Gaby Salamon of Buenos Aires was sold Sotheby's London 8 July 1983, lot 87. A vase mounted with mermen and very similar to lot 75 in the Baroness Burton sale, was sold from the collection of the late Baron Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, Habsburg Feldman, Geneva, 10 May 1988, lot 83
A pair of vases from the collections of Madame de Polès, George Blumentahl and Corinna Kavanagh, will be offered for sale Christie's, Monaco, 20 June 1992, lot 58.
Similar dolphin mounts appear on a drawing by Charles de Wailly in the Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, published in 1760, illustrated S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, fig. 326.