European timepieces with their Roman numerals were a popular novelty as early as the Kangxi period at the Qing Court. Apart from watches and clocks imported to the Court, the practice of incorporating European movements into Chinese cases seems to have begun in the Kangxi period and continued well into the nineteenth century. Inevitably, this led to the watch-face, with its considerable exotic appeal, being used as decoration on other works of art, particularly snuff bottles.

The present rare metal example is reasonably attributed to the Palace workshops of the Qianlong period, as the watch-face on a snuff bottle would have been an amusing and pertinent one for the Qianlong Court, while the four-character mark is typical of Palace production of that period. Similar bottles in porcelain are also known from the late eighteenth century; see Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, no. 221.