The excellent goldsmith Dominique-François Poitreau was born circa 1725, a son of a painter and member of the Académie Royale de Peinture in Paris. He was registered as a master in 1757, under the sponsorship of the gold box maker Pierre-François Delafons and ceased to work in 1781. Gold snuff-boxes by his hand are to be found in the Louvre, the Cognacq-Jay Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Virginia Museum of Art, Richmond, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and at Waddesdon Manor.
A nearly identical box by Poitreau, of the same year, was sold Sotheby's, Geneva, 16 May 1991, lot 113.