The Vincennes porcelain factory had a link to the French crown from its inception as it was established in about 1740 in the semi-abandoned royal fortress of the château de Vincennes to the east of Paris. There, a handful of porcelain specialists devoted themselves to solving the technical challenges of porcelain production as huge sums were paid by wealthy aristocrats for this glassy white substance which, up to then, was mostly imported from East Asia or the Meissen factory in what is now Germany. (In Europe it was the Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong who had led the drive to emulate Chinese porcelains, and his Meissen factory was established in about 1710.) During the early 1740s the majority of the Vincennes factory's products were probably experimental as the porcelain body was still being perfected and different enamel colours invented. In 1745 however, they secured a royal 'privilège' which granted them the exclusive right to produce porcelain ‘in Meissen style’ in France. As the wording suggests, the factory's earliest productions were indebted to the prestigious Meissen factory. The factory's repertoire quickly evolved however, from the emulation of East Asian or Meissen examples to incorporate the latest styles used in French gilt-bronze, woodcarving and decorative painting. The financial support and patronage of King Louis XV and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, enabled Vincennes to secure the best technicians, artists, sculptors and designers. Jean-Claude Duplessis (director of models, 1748-74), Jean-Jacques Bachelier (director of decoration, 1751-93), Etienne-Maurice Falconet (director of sculpture, 1757-66), and the court painter François Boucher, all played a central role in the development of this entirely new French art form. By 1756 the factory had outgrown its workshops in the old château and it transferred to specially constructed premises at Sèvres (south-west of Paris). In 1759 the king purchased the factory outright and remarkably the Sèvres porcelain manufactory continues in production to the present day.

The decoration on this cup and saucer is typical of the early 1750s with its glossy blue ground edged with gilded scrolling fronds and wheeling birds in the centre. This blue colour was the earliest ground developed at the factory in 1752, called bleu lapis after the hardstone lapis lazuli. The gilding around the edge of the ground has been tooled to give added depth and relief and was intended to conceal the fact that the blue ground had 'bled' into the white reserves, however if you look carefully this can still be seen. Considered a flaw at the time, this characteristic is now regarded as the hallmark of the most desirable early ground-decorated Vincennes. The cup shape is called 'gobelet Calabre', named after one of the early shareholders of the Vincennes factory, the royal official Pierre Calabre. It also has an unusual form of scroll handle, rarely found on surviving Vincennes cups today.