This vase is by the French ceramicist Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909). Chaplet trained at Sèvres in decoration, design and ceramic techniques and went on to work at Choisy-le-Roi, then for the Laurin pottery at Bourg-la-Reine and from 1875 for the Limoges company, Charles Haviland & cie, in a workshop at Auteuil, developing new techniques on stoneware and porcelain. In the early 1880s he moved to a new Haviland studio in Vaugirard, Paris which was ceded to him in 1887. He worked there independently and became increasingly preoccupied with the relationship between material, form and colour, experimenting endlessly.

The distinctive colouring of this vase demonstrates Chaplet's interest in glaze effects and is inspired by Chinese ceramics. The high-temperature copper-red flammée glazes of 18th century Chinese porcelain became the subject of intensive research and experiment in the years around 1900, both by factories and individual makers. Their re-creation depended entirely on the potter's knowledge of chemistry as well as his skill at firing these dramatic and unpredictable glazes. The technique produced a range of colours from a deep bright red through a spectrum of violet, blue, green, purple and combinations of all of these. Chaplet kept his own recipes a closely guarded secret. Towards the end of his life, when blindness brought his career as a potter to its end, Chaplet destroyed all his notebooks.