These wine-coolers are part of an extensive group of items commissioned by the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich (1798-1849), the youngest child of the Russian Emperor Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, and brother to the Emperors Alexander I (1801-1825) and Nicholas I (1826-1855). The Emperor Paul and, later Alexander, set aside the vast sum of nine million roubles to build Grand Duke Mikhail a new palace in St. Petersburg. The Mikhail Palace was built between 1819 and 1823 by the Italian architect and designer Carlo Rossi, who was responsible not only for the building itself but also for every detail of the interior decoration. Grand Duke Mikhail married in 1824, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, Princess of Wurtemberg. The Palace, with the finest interiors of the day, is now the Russian Museum.

Together with his brother Nicholas I, Grand Duke Mikhail patronised the leading Parisian silversmiths. The Biennais and Cahier workshops produced the enormous Mikhail Pavlovich service, which comprised over one thousand pieces. Both silversmiths' marks appear on different parts of the same pieces, as with the present lot. In 1819, Biennais retired and sold the business, archives and designs to Cahier. By 1828 Cahier was bankrupt. Today pieces from the service are in the collections of the Hermitage, the Kremlin, the Rijksmuseum and the Espirito Santo Foundation in Lisbon. Three pairs of double salt cellars from the service sold at Christie's, Geneva, 1 May 1974, lots 103-105. A pair of five-light candelabra by Cahier sold at Christie's, Geneva, 19 November 1996, lot 37. Other pieces from the Pavlovich service include a pair of French silver-gilt wine-coasters and a set of three silver-gilt pots-à-bouchée both by Cahier sold at Christie's, Geneva, 17 November 1998, lots 164-170 and 171.