The scenes of maidens on the present lot are both taken from engravings by Gilles Demarteau of François Boucher's Académie de femme endormie and Vénus endormie, illustrated in P. Jean-Richard, L'œuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1978, p. 196, no. 714, and pp. 198-199, no. 730.
Dame Rosalind Savill posits that the original porcelain covers for this pair of vases may have been made into gilt-bronze mounted candlesticks now in the Wallace Collection. See R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. II, p. 788-189, no. C484 for a further discussion of the adaptation.