The factory at Saint-Cloud near Paris was probably the first in Europe to make soft-paste (imitation) porcelain on a commercial basis. (A factory at Rouen in northern France had received a privilege (patent) to make porcelain in 1673, but there is some controversy about whether production was actually achieved.) The Saint-Cloud factory was in production by the 1690s and survived until 1766. It made a great range of functional and decorative wares, and some figures.

Early products were painted in underglaze blue and subsequently decorated with moulded reliefs inspired by Dehua wares or painted in polychrome enamels. Its most characteristic early productions were painted with the distinctive patterns of formal interlacing ornament on this piece, which derive partly from prints by such French court designers as Jean Berain, and partly from Chinese blue-and-white. Both this jar and its cover bear the early factory mark of a sun face, which is an allusion to the ‘Sun King’, Louis XIV of France (1638-1715). The factory made many cylindrical toilet or cosmetic jars, but the size of this one suggests it may have been intended for tobacco.