The most important French porcelain factory was founded in about 1740 in the royal château of Vincennes, with workmen lured from the nearby factory at Chantilly. By 1756 Vincennes had outgrown its workshops in the old château and the factory transferred to specially constructed premises at Sèvres. The Royal Manufactory specialised in exceptionally luxurious objects, many destined for the French court. Capable of startling innovation, the factory produced a constantly evolving repertoire to suit the changing tastes of its clients. Sèvres porcelain was admired and collected by the royal, noble and wealthy elite throughout Europe, but it also became widely imitated.

The model for these wall lights was supplied to the Vincennes/Sèvres factory by the goldsmith and their directeur artistique, Jean-Claude Duplessis in 1760. They were in production by 1st January 1761, when they are described in an inventory as 'bras de cheminée Duplessis'. They seem to capture the essense of the rococo style as their organic form exploits the plasticity of the medium of porcelain to the full. Modelled as scrolling branches with leaves and buds, at the end of the branches there are gilt-bronze candle-holders formed as tulip-like flowers. Sèvres factory documents indicate that only about 20 pairs were sold between 1761 and 1768. King Louis XV owned at least ten green pairs, bought in 1762. Thanks to the inventory of her possessions drawn up after her death in 1764, we know that the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour had a pair in pink, green and blue in the bedroom of her Paris townhouse, the Hôtel d'Évreux (now the Elysée Palace), and another pair in green was in her grand cabinet at the château de Ménars. They would have been mounted on the wall flanking the fireplace in the room, probably with a garniture of vases in matching colours displayed on the mantelpiece.
In addition to this pair, there are a few others in public collections today, including one rare pair in three colours, pink, blue and green, in the Louvre, Paris (probably one of those owned by Mme. de Pompadour), one in the Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York and another in the musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris. None of them, as far as it is known, have any marks.

Information about Mme. de Pompadour's Sèvres wall lights summarised from Madame de Pompadour et les arts (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002) Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, 14 February - 19 May 2002, Kunsthalle der Hypo- Kulturstiftung, Munich, 14 June - 15 September 2002, and the National Gallery, London, 16 October 2002 - 12 January 2003.