In January 1784, Marie Antoinette commissioned from Sèvres a sumptuous dinner service for her use at Versailles. However, upon its completion in May of that year, it was given instead by Louis XVI to Gustav III as a diplomatic gift commemorating the Swedish king's visit to France. Not to be long denied, Marie Antoinette received her own service, in the exact same pattern and design and of the same composition plus an additional 24 large oval and round platters, on 26 August 1784. Five years later, a third service in the same pattern, described in the factory's records as '..décoration riche en couleurs et riche en or ...de la reine' was commissioned by Marie Antoinette's sister-in-law, the comtesse d'Artois.

The present plate is from this third service. Noted in the factory Sales Registers as 'pour Versailles' this would indicate, together with the high cost and quality of the service in comparison to earlier services purchased, that it was for the use of the comte and comtesse at their Versailles apartments. The service comprised 228 pieces including 96 assiettes (potage and unies) at a cost of 33 livres each. The service would have seen little use as it was delivered only three weeks before the comte and comtesse d'Artois left Versailles for exile in Graz at the insistence of the count's elder brother, King Louis XVI. The comtesse died there in 1805. Her husband returned to France in 1814 as Regent for his older surviving brother, Louis XVIII, ruling himself from 1824-1830 as Charles X.

Different components of this service are recorded in the Kiln Books on three occasions in 1789, described as 'Service d'artois' and Boileau's name appears in these records. For a detailed discussion of the service, of its relation to those made for Marie Antoinette and Gustav III, and of the current whereabouts of other components of the service, see David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the Eighteenth Century, Little Berkhamsted, 2015, Vol. IV, pp. 879-881, no. 89-3.

Sixteen assiettes unies (including examples decorated by Boileau and Pierre) are at Stratfield Saye House, Hants.

Jean-Jacques Pierre was a painter and gilder specialising in flowers and patterns at Sèvres from 1763 to 1800. Boileau (le jeune or cadet) was a painter (in May 1783 only) and a gilder who worked at the manufactory between 1783 and 1789.