In the mid eighteenth century glass coolers would have been used in order to rinse and cool wine glasses on the dining tables of wealthy people. They would have been filled with iced water and whenever the diner seated nearby wanted a drink, he or she would motion to a servant standing behind their chair. He would bring a tray with a glass of wine and a carafe of water as wine was usually drunk diluted at this time. After the glass was emptied it could be placed in the cooler to be 'refreshed' until another drink was required.

In the exhibition catalogue Daily Pleasures: French Ceramics from the MaryLou Boone Collection, (2012, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art), Antoinette Faÿ-Hallé explains that the grotesque animal decoration found on pieces made at the Moustiers faïence manufactory of Olérys-Laugier is unique. They can however be seen as part of the continuing popular French tradition of grotesques best known from the designs of the seventeenth century artists Jean Bérain and Jacques Callot. The basic outline of the designs would have been applied to the surface using a poncif, a paper pattern on which the outlines would have been drawn and pierced with tiny holes. By rubbing charcoal over these perforations, the design could be positioned in exactly the right place.

Moustiers is a small town perched on a mountainside in Provence in the south of France. In the 18th century it was no more than a village, but due to the ready availability of clay, wood and water, it was home to two important faïence potteries and other more minor ones, less well-known today. In the late 17th century Pierre Clérissy founded the most important dynasty of potters who worked there, but the other pottery of note was founded by Joseph Olérys in 1737. Olérys (1697-1749), had worked in Marseilles as a potter and as a pottery dealer. In 1726 or 1727 he left to work for the Count of Aranda at Alcora in Spain where he set up a manufactory. He mastered the art of producing high temperature colours, grand feu, there, however after ten years he was forced to leave by the native potters, jealous of his success. He returned to the south of France and went into partnership with his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Laugier to found a pottery at Moustiers. The OL mark found sometimes on their wares is a combination therefore of both their initials. On this glass cooler, the mark has been painted on the flag held aloft by the grotesque figure riding backwards on the dog-like animal on one side of the vessel.