Jean Dunand, one of the best-known figures of French Art Deco, was perhaps the most renowned European lacquer artist of the twentieth century. Although he had trained as a sculptor, around 1905 he began exploring the more lucrative field of decorative arts, particularly metalworking. In 1912, he undertook to learn the then closely guarded secrets of traditional Asian lacquering from Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese master living in Paris. Combining age-old techniques with contemporary forms and decorative designs, Dunand himself soon began producing furniture and decorative panels, at the same time experimenting with new ways of using lacquer, incorporating it into jewelry, textiles, and even society portraiture. His business thrived after World War I, and during his own lifetime his work was widely exhibited throughout Europe and the United States, and acquired by major museums such as the Metropolitan.

Dunand worked in a variety of stylistic idioms, ranging from pictorial to abstract. During the 1920s, he and other designers who were unable to commit themselves to the austerities of modernism attempted to find a middle ground by borrowing shapes found in abstract paintings and applying them as fashionable decoration to luxury objects. The boldly colored geometric patterning on this vase emphasizes its spherical form and typifies the sophisticated tastes of the time.

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