This object was clearly conceived as a cabinet or low cupboard, in the style of larger Boulle marquetry <i>armoires</i> dating from the late seventeenth century. However, its smaller dimensions and the interior fitting of a writing slide are atypical of seventeenth-century Boulle designs; low cabinets attributed to Boulle are usually of wider and lower proportions than those of this cabinet. It was probably made between 1765 and 1775, reusing older marquetry and mounts.
The English collector John Jones (ca. 1799-1882) is said to have paid the considerable sum of £3,500 for this cabinet. He placed it in the larger drawing room on the first floor of 95, Piccadilly, his home from 1865, where its position was described in William Maskell's 1883 <i>Handbook of the Jones Collection</i>: 'Opposite the fireplace was the black boule cabinet (No. 1045) with the three Sèvres vases (Nos. 766, 767)', (pp. 23 and 33). These Sèvres objects are a pair of pot-pourri vases and covers, made 1757-8, and decorated during the nineteenth century (766:1-1882, 766:2-1882, 766A:1-1882 and 766A:2-1882) and a vase and cover made ca. 1775 (767-1882 and 767A-1882).