French silver pieces of domestic use made in the first half of the 17th Century have survived in excedingly small number. Michèle Bimbenet-Privat records only two pieces of Paris silver (apart from flatware), one of which being another basket, 1634, also made by Nicolas Crestien, British Museum (cf. Les Orfèvres Parisiens de la Renaissance, Paris, 1992). To her list can be added a pair of baskets, silver-gilt, sold at Christie's Geneva, 13 May 1981 (lot 159, maker's mark illegible); they were then described as Paris 1657, but a recent examination suggests the date, coherent with their style, of 1633.
Silver baskets were probably made in the 1630's to present fruit or flowers, as can be inferred from numerous contemporary still-lifes incorporating baskets of different shapes to that effect.
Nicolas Crestien entered his mark on 3 August 1608. In line with Corporation customs of the time, he married shortly thereafter, on 21 September of the same year. One of his two sons, Nicolas II, was to become a silversmith in Paris in 1638. Nicolas I obviously specialised in the manufacture of silver baskets since the inventory of his stock, made following his wife's death in April 1639, records besides gold cases and book bindings, 6 paniers d'argent en ovale (259 livres), 2 paniers ronds d'argent ciselé avec anse de serpent (639 livres) and further silver baskets with no precision of value.