This elegant vase relates to C.F. Sundvall's designs for porphyry vases, which were executed around 1788-1790, see H. Sundblom, Porfyr, Stockholm, 1985, p. 21. The Swedish prototype for a porphyry vase with similar ormolu mask mounts now resides in the Royal Swedish Collections at Drottningholm, and was first produced in 1787 as a gift for King Gustav III (see ibid., p. 14). By the early nineteenth century, a wide variety of porphyry vessels were produced at the Älvdalen Porphyrverk, and the company's catalogue from 1805 illustrates a vase of the same shape as this lot as number 5 (ibid. p. 31).

Many of the early vases were mounted with ormolu produced by the court ciseleur Fredrik Ludvig Rung (1748-1810). Rung was responsible for the satyr-head mounts on the 1787 Royal vase and his surviving designs from 1799 show other vases with satyr and male masks (ibid. p. 30). Rung had trained in France and England, before returning to Stockholm in 1787 and establishing a workshop specializing in clocks, candelabra and mounts for porphyry objects. Various related porphyry pieces were intended as gifts by the King of Sweden, Maréchal Bernadotte, who reigned as Karl XIV Johann from 1818 to 1844, and whose family owned the porphyry mines. The King presented numerous porphyry objets to Napoleon's maréchaux and various other French dignitaries. A pair of Swedish porphyry vases fitted with satyr masks hung with garlands and with similar leaf-cast mounts to the base of each was sold Christie's, London, 5 July 2012, lot 47 (£145,250).

Porphyry was first discovered in Sweden at Älvdalen in 1731 but was not commercially exploited until after 1788 by Eric Hagström under the direction of Nils Adam Bielke. For several decades the domestic workshops produced vases, urns and other monumental vessels often mounted with ormolu mounts either made in Sweden or mounted in France. The works were purchased by Bernadotte in 1818 and remained under Royal ownership until 1856. Bernadotte used the production of primarily Empire objects in porphyry and related granite to disseminate the Empire style that he had brought from France. Production largely ceased following a disastrous fire in 1869.