The enameller Charles-Jacques de Mailly (1740-1817) worked in Paris and Moscow. Henri Clouzot (Dictionnaire des miniaturistes sur émail, Paris, 1924, p. 134) mentions a gold bonbonnière decorated on the lid with a basket of flowers on a table by Mailly's hand, from the Debruge-Duménil sale in 1850.
Jean-Baptiste Fossin (1786-1848) worked as chef d'atelier for Etienne Nitot who was joaillier de l'Empereur, and his son François-Regnault who retired from business in the place Vendôme on the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814/1815. Fossin took over and under his management, the firm became one of the most celebrated of its day, specially for jewellery. Jean-Baptiste Fossin's son Jules joined his father in 1830 and they were appointed joailliers du Roi by King Louis-Philippe. Jean-Baptiste Fossin retired in 1845 and his son in 1862. Fossin & Fils had among their clientèle early collectors of 17th and 18th century enamels, including Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato who charged them to mount his enamel miniatures on gold boxes (see exhibition catalogue Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato [1812-1870], London, Wallace Collection, 1994, pp. 77-84). The present box is another example for the lavish collector's taste in the mid-19th Century.