In addition to flowers formally placed in vases or baskets, Dutch still life painters depicted flowers casually set on a ledge or shelf, as, for example, in a painting by Rachel Ruysch. Such works, almost certainly, served as models for the enamelist who created the painted miniatures on this snuffbox. Notably, during the same period, floral arrangements of a similar style were used by decorators of the Sèvres manufactory, and also, albeit in more free and airy compositions, by textile designers. Snuffboxes of this shape — with a sharply defined elliptical contour, the width of which was sometimes more than twice the depth — were fashionable in Paris in the early 1760s.

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