Designed in the goût Grec, this encrier was almost certainly supplied by the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. Established 'A la couronne d'Or' in the rue Saint-Honoré, Poirier specialised in Sèvres porcelain-mounted furniture and objets d'art for the Court. The tripartite form and voluted husk-trailed angles relate directly to the celebrated series of 'plaques d'écritoire'-mounted encriers supplied almost exclusively by Poirier between 1761 to 1768, of which the earliest recorded is that in the Wallace Collection (R. Savile, The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. II, C498, pp.858-60). As Savile noted, between July and December 1764 Poirier bought forty-two 'plaques d'écritoire', costing from 9 to 72 livres each, and again in 1772, he acquired a further twelve plaques with his partner Daguerre. As the only other listing for such plaques is the thirty-six acquired by an unnamed figure in 1765, one can safely conclude that Poirier was responsible for the genesis of this design.

Only three further encriers of this model are recorded:- one, with tortoiseshell-veneered ground, almost certainly acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, is at Waddesdon (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Fribourg, 1974, no. 72, p. 367), another was sold from the collection of Wendell Cherry at Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1994, lot 41, while the third, from the collection F. de Paniagua, was sold in Paris, 4 May 1983, lot 119