The Parisian firm of Emile Froment-Meurice produced this monumental centerpiece for a spectacular ensemble of silver table decorations, all ornamented with mythological figures and other motifs culled from an eclectic combination of Italian High Renaissance sources. The centerpiece was conceived by the sculptor Jean-Jacques Feuchère as a table fountain decorated with such aquatic images as figures of Neptune, Venus, and a sea nymph, and topped with a boat-shaped dish that would have contained an elaborate arrangement of fruit and sweets. One of the most fashionable silversmiths of mid-nineteenth-century Paris, Froment-Meurice played a significant role in the revival of the Italian Renaissance style in France, largely through its collaboration with Feuchère. This style offered a luxuriant choice of motifs and materials to the members of the French court and aristocracy who were among the clients of Froment-Meurice, and was the favored decoration for their Parisian dining rooms, where they entertained with the opulence and authority of Renaissance princes. Katherine B. Hiesinger, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 154.