The original Vase de Minerva and its pendant Vase de Mars entered the Royal Registry at the end of December 1787 at the enormous price of 12.000 livres for the pair. They were to be placed in the Cabinet du Conseil at Versailles to accompany the blue brocade furniture designed for Louis XVI. The Vase de Mars and its cover is currently exhibited on the mantelpiece of the Cabinet de l'Abdication at Fountainbleau, while the Minerva cover was discovered by Carle Dreyfus to rest atop a clock in the Louvre (no. 375 in the catalogue du Mobiler). The original model for the present example has been lost. Thus the present lot is of clear historic importance as it closely relates to the non-extant original. (See P. Verlet, Sèvres, Le XVIII Sièle, Paris, 1953, pl. 89.)