Reflecting the late eighteenth century's obsession with hardstones—a taste expounded above all by the duc d'Aumont and, subsequently Marie-Antoinette—this vine-wrapped 'tazza' with its richly mottled agate bowl relates to the oeuvre of the ornemaniste Jean-Demosthene Dugourc (1749-1825). Appointed dessinateur du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, Dugourc signed a related design for an ormolu-mounted hardstone bowl with octagonal base and foliate scroll feet, which is now in the Royal Ontario Museum (H. Creel Collinson, Documenting Design, Toronto, 1993, p. 94, no. 44). Dated 1784, as an inscription on the latter reveals, the drawing was supplied to the goldsmith and jouallier du Roi Ange-Joseph Aubert (1736-1785).

Such hardstone-mounted pieces, reminiscent of Renaissance Schatzkammer objects, enjoyed a revived popularity at the end of the eighteenth century through the impetus of both the marchands-merciers and, more importantly, the hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs, where the duc d'Aumont himself established a workshop in 1770 specializing in the cutting and polishing of coveted hardstones. This celebrated atelier employed the influential architect François-Joseph Belanger (1744-1818) as designer, Pierre Gouthiére (1732-1813) as ciseleur-doreur, Augustin Bocciardi (active 1760-90) as sculpteur and Guillemain to finish the hardstones with a 'polis ferme et brilliant'. At the very end of the eighteenth century, the duc d'Aumont's legacy was in turn taken up by designers such as Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1746-1810), who supplied objects of this nature to William Beckford at Fonthill. A related agate tazza, with similar delicate grapevine garlands and now firmly attributed to Gouthière, was sold from the Alexander Collection, Christie’s, New York, 30 April 1999, lot 24 ($34,500), and subsequently from A Trumbauer Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line; Christie’s, New York, 15 April 2011, lot 650 ($98,500).