The vessel is made up of five parts of multicoloured jasper, possibly from Bohemia, and five mounts of silver gilt, enamelled gold and precious stones. The body is made up of a deep scallop shell carved with gadroons and a flat cover, also gadrooned, decorated with a mount with overlays of enamelled sprays of polychrome flowers enriched with rubies and diamonds. Similar but narrower mounts surround the stem, whose knop is decorated with elongated ovals. The foot is another inverted scallop shell, with a mount as broad as that on the lip, decorated with turquoises, amethysts, sapphires and topazes. Inspired by models from the Miseroni workshop, there are similar pieces thought to have been made in Germany, but without covers, at the Museo degli Argenti in Florence, Rosenborg Castle in Denmark, the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden, and the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

The 1689 Versailles inventory states that it had forty-one stones decorating its mounts. Thirty-two remained in 1839, and only thirty survive today. At the apex of the piece was an enamelled figure of Neptune riding a dolphin that guided the snail. It can be seen on the photographs taken before it was stolen in 1918 along with many of the mounts.

The mount is inspired by French engravings, and especially the series of François Le Febvre (act. 1635-57), published in 1635 and 1657, and the engravings of Jacques Vauquer (1621-86) between 1631 and 1686. The figures are contemporary with the piece, since the enamelling on the snail is the same as that used for the flowers, and the jasper shell belongs to the same vein as the bowl, indicating that the cup was designed together with the cover and the figures. The mounts are very similar to those of O119, another piece of German origin in the Dauphin’s Treasure.

The Museo del Prado has the photograph by Juan Laurent y Minier: Grand vase en jaspe fleuri, montures d’or émail et pierres précieuses, règne de Louis XIII , c. 1879. Museo del Prado, HF0835/22 (L. Arbeteta, in press).