A similar cinnabar red lacquer box decorated with black lacquer and gold piqué panels mounted in pierced gold borders was made by Nicolas-Antoine Vallière, Paris, 1766-1768. Formerly in the Sir Chester Beatty collection, it now belongs to the Thyssen Bornemisza Collection (Anna Somers Cocks, Charles Truman, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Renaissance jewels, gold boxes and objets de vertu, London, 1984, no. 65, pp. 210-211). Another very interesting comparable can be found in the collections of the Musée du Louvre: a gold-mounted cinnabar lacquer box of very similar shape, style and dimensions was made only two years prior to the present box (OA 7636), the sides also decorated with small black lacquer roundels of piqué posé phoenixes and flowers such as chrysanthemums.

For a biography on Louis Roucel, see cat. no. 74 in this collection; more information on the technique of piqué can be found in the entry for cat. no. 91.