The cloche, or dish cover, was a key object in a service à la française, whose main function was to keep food warm. The still life atop this piece suggests it would have been used to preserve a delicacy called matelote (cloche à la matelote), comprising fish and shellfish served in a wine-based sauce.

This example is a real silversmithing tour de force, in terms of both its original design and its exceptional technical execution, which are common characteristics of Durant’s work. Here, various marine species are depicted with great naturalism.

Henry Janssen, an English privateer in the service of Louis XV, was its first owner, and down the decades this piece, as well as the tableware it forms part of, belonged to the counts of Eu, the dukes of Penthièvre and the dukes of Orléans. In 1821, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, the future King of the French, acquired this service – today known as the ‘Penthièvre-Orléans’ service – and commissioned the silversmith Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763–1850) to apply his coat of arms to this and other pieces.