The box is circular with slightly waisted sides and is painted with Venetian quayside views, based on prints by Melchior Küsel (1626–1683), after Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1640), from the series Unterschiedliche Prospecten published in 1681.
The gold mounts were made in Amsterdam, with date letter for 1741; no other Meissen porcelain box appears to have been recorded with contemporary Amsterdam gold mounts. The maker’s mark is that of Louis Metayer (?–1774) who had fled France following his presumably elder brother Philippe (1697–1763), a chaser, to the Netherlands. Louis became a master of the Goldsmiths’ Guild in 1730 and the brothers appear to have worked both together and independently, as is the case with these simple unchased mounts. Surviving works with Louis Metayer’s maker’s mark include gold cups, a cane handle of 1750 in the Rijksmuseum and a few snuffboxes.

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