The label to the underside of one of the vases refers to the luxury merchant Boin, who sold his glass-wares at the Palais Royal 120 in the Galerie des Bons-Enfants. He had succeeded his uncle Bucher in 1819, and expanded the business dramatically in 1828 when he bought the highly regarded L'Escalier de Cristal, which was run by Veuve Desarnaud. Boin is recorded until 1845, although the label on the present vases indicates that they were made between 1819 and 1828.

Opaline glass, or 'cristal d'opale', is formed from a type of lead crystal which is colored by the addition of other substances. 'Cristal d'opale' first appeared in the Empire Period, with the establishment to the celebrated Baccarat factory. Baccarat rivaled and rapidly eclipsed the output of the English and Bohemian manufacturers, which until then had dominated the production of crystal glass. The taste for such colored opalines grew quickly, and was particularly strong in the Restauration period. The Journal des Dames et des Modes in January 1824, for instance, remarked that 'On a donné aux dames, en cadeau de Jour de l'An, beaucoup de cristaux colorés en blanc laiteux dit opale; en rose dit hortensia, en bleu dit turquoise...' (S. Faniel ed., Le Dix-Neuvième Siècle Français, Paris, 1957, p. 126).

A vase urne en cristal d'opal bleu 'turquoise' of apparently identical form and dated circa 1810-1820 is illustrated in C. Vincendeau, Les Opalines, Luçon, 1998, p. 32, while a clock of 'bleu lavande' with very similar swan's neck terminals and dated to circa 1825 is illustrated on p. 61. Interestingly, a design for a 'vase urne' of closely related form (but in cut-glass), conceived by Madame Desarnaud for L' Escalier de Cristal and published in the Manuel complet du fabricant de verre et de cristalle, Paris, 1829, is in the archives of the Compagnie des verreries et cristalleries de Baccarat. It is illustrated in C. Vincendeau, op. cit., p. 178.