A small town Caltagirone is one of the principal centres of ceramics in Sicily where the items are made of majolica and terracotta. The Bongiovani-Vaccaro workshop is among the most famous in Caltagirone, it gained fame in the late 18th century thanks to the ‘presepio’ or ‘presepe’(from Italian – a crib) – sculptural compositions made in a special genre of small statuary popular in Italy. Sometime after the notion ‘presepio’ became used not only for compositions but for the figures as well. According to I.V. Gorbatova, this piece from the collection of the Moscow Kremlin Museums also belongs to presepio being a part of a certain composition.

The box was created at the manufactory founded by the King of Naples Carlo III in 1743 in the Palace Capodimonte in Naples. The factory specializing in the soft-paste porcelain produced plastic compositions decorated with vivid paintings. A certain influence of the Meissen Manufactory can be traced in the factory’s objects. In the late 50s of the 18th century, the factory was closed: Carlo III, having become the King of Spain, left Naples and took away with him all the masters to found Buen Retiro manufactory in Spain. In 1771, the manufactory resumed its work upon the initiative of King Ferdinand IV but in 1799 it was put on fire and plundered as the result of the intrusion of the Napoleon army in Naples. There were many attempts to restore the factory till it was finally closed down in 1821.