This small brazier, already cited in the 1689 Versailles inventory, follows the French classical taste propitiated by Le Brun, Maison, Bérain and others. The vessel is made up of seven pieces of jade and silver gilt mounts. The body consists of a large piece of jade on a tripod foot formed by three dogs’ paws with six hanging festoons, ribbons, and a low gadrooned receptacle ending in a ring. Inside are three cartouches with incised decoration and elements for holding a container, possibly the brazier. Three female masks with tiaras and veils are joined to the bowl with hinges. The cover rests on a broad flared mount with a pattern of ribbons and festoons on a scaled ground. There follows a moulding of interlaced ribbons and fleurons, and above it another in the form of a bell-shaped lantern with an openwork lattice at the top and a flame finial.

The mark visible on the edge of the cover is the discharge mark of Antoine Etienne Ridereau, assay master (fermier) from 1684 to 1687.

Masks, ribboned garlands and “dogs’ paws” for consoles are typical features of the so-called Louis XIV style, of which so few gold and silver pieces have survived. As an object fully in keeping with fashion, this vessel was given a high valuation in the 1689 Versailles inventory, reaching a figure of 300 pistoles. There are vessels with similar designs at the Louvre, such as MR 201 and MR 202. The design of ribbons interlaced with fleurons, used on convex mouldings, is also found on other vessels in the Prado, this time in enamelled gold. It can be seen on pieces O36 and O37, marked by the Parisian silversmith with the initials PL, who has been identified as Pierre Ladoyreau. The work was done in 1689, since it already appears in the inventory of that year, and it bears the discharge mark of Jacques Léger, active between 1689 and 1691.

The Museo del Prado has the photograph by Juan Laurent y Minier, Untitled. Museo del Prado, HF0835/56 (L. Arbeteta, in press).