As early as 1842 the French firm Christofle & Cie. began perfecting a mixed-metal technique known as galvanoplastie, a type of silver electroplate, which enabled a cast to be taken directly for the artist's model thus preserving the fine detail. The innovative technique also allowed the firm to create a multi-colored effect that directly coincided with the growing fascination with Japanese and Chinese arts, including metalwork (momuke). The pre-eminent designer of these French mixed-metal works was the artist Emile-Auguste Reiber (1826-1893), dubbed the ‘high priest of Japonisme,’ who had rose to Director at the firm of Christofle. Reiber used his technical prowess in orfévrerie, galvanoplastie and bronze-work to create works that were innovative both technically and artistically in their combination of materials, many of which were exhibited by the firm at the 1874 Exposition de L'Union Centrale, the precursor of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, and subsequently at the 1878 Exposition universelle.
A large number of Reiber’s designs were heavily influenced by Chinese and Japanese works from the extensive collection of Henri Cernuschi, the Italian-born financier who amassed over 5,000 objects during his travels abroad between 1871 and 1873. Upon his return, the collection was shown in the Exposition Orientaliste at the Palais de l'Industrie. The exhibition resonated deeply with Paris's burgeoning artist community and Reiber spent countless hours documenting the collection in painstaken detail. Reiber published his drawings in 1877 in Propagande artistique du Musée-Reiber, Le Premier volume des Albums-Reiber, bibliothéque portative des arts du dessin. Known simply as the Albums-Reiber, the extensive compendium notably illustrates a small ‘corbeille demi-sphérique’ from the Cernuschi Collection cast with flowering branches and clustered pinecone supports which are so prominently featured on the present jardinière (op. cit p. 93).
A nearly identical example of this form was displayed at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris as part of a larger garniture that also comprised a pair of vases, candelabra or lamps. The success and popularity of the form led to production of jardinières in two sizes, including the present original oblong design, an example of which is presently in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1991.88a) and a smaller square jardinière, one of which is in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (Inv. OAO1017).