The C couronn poinon was a tax mark employed in France between March 1745 and February 1749 on any alloy containing copper.
With its vigorous and naturalistically-modelled scrolling acanthus, this pot-pourri vase reflects the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style promoted by marchands-mercier such as Lazare Duvaux. As his Livre-Journal testifies, the latter sold vases of this general form as early as 6 December 1751 to the Marquise de Pompadour, as well as Deux pots pourris cladon, monts en bronze dor d'or moulu 288 livres to the comtesse de Bentleim on 15 December 1756. Duvaux is known to have employed the bronzier Jean-Claude Duplessis to mount Chinese porcelain - such as the vase sold to the marquise de Voyer on 21 August 1753: La Monture en cuivre cisel d'un vase du porcelaine bleu, paye M. Duplessis- but any firm attribution to a specific bronzier is unsustainable, both Thomas Germain and Jacques Cafffiri having also been suggested as possible authors of this form of mounted vase.
Related ormolu-mounted celadon porcelain pots-pourri, also stamped with the C couronn poinon but of slightly larger size, include the single vase sold by the Trustees of the Luton Hoo Foundation, Christie's London, 9 June 1994, lot 32 (154,000); a pair in the J. Paul Getty Museum (F.J.B. Watson and G. Wilson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1982, no.10, pp. 53-57); and a final pair in the Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco (D. F. Lunsingh Scheuleer, Chinesisches und Japanisches Porzellan in europaschen Fassungen, Braunschweig, 1980, p. 323, no. 304).