This box is set with ten panels of Japanese kiji-nuri lacquer. Kiji-nuri is a technique of painting on wood which incorporates the grain of the wood into the decoration. Marchands-merciers encouraged the taste for oriental design elements, and Marie-Antoinette built a collection of the most refined lacquer boxes. The marchands notably imported large quantities of lacquer objects and panels from Japan. They supplied panels to Parisian goldsmiths who had invented, in the 1730s 1740s, a new way of creating boxes using cagework mounts. These acted as a skeleton onto which decorative panels could be fitted and easily changed to suit the latest fashion.

Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde formed one of the world's great decorative art collections, including silver, mosaics, enamelled portrait miniatures and gold boxes. Arthur Gilbert donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996.