The demand for 'antique' style decorative arts such as this ewer and basin, was so great in the late-18th century that, in addition to copying surviving Classical antiquities, manufacturers took designs from prints of the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of these prints were highly fanciful inventions, which were not seriously intended as models for production. The design for the shape of this ewer, the body, handle and spout, is taken from plate 10 of "Livre de Vases", published in 1667 after drawings by the French painter Jacques Stella (1596 - 1657).
The ewer and basin were made in the Duc d'Angoulême's porcelain factory, Paris. In 1781 Christoph Dihl (1752-1830), Antoine Guérhard (d.1793) and his wife Louise-Françoise-Madelaine Croizé (1751-1831) established a factory under the protection of the then only five year old Duc d’Angoulême (1775-1844). This Royal patronage allowed the factory to manufacture coloured and gilt porcelain which had been monopolised by Sèvres since 1766. It operated first at Rue de Bondy, Paris moving in 1789 to rue du Temple. The factory enjoyed success and continued after the Revolution. The factory suffered financial difficulties in the early-19th century eventually leading to closure in 1828.