The looped handle allows the tastevin to be worn suspended from a chain. This particular tastevin has a finely-worked handle in the form of a snake. Snake handles are most frequently seen on tastevins from the Burgundy region, but this example bears hallmarks from the city of Troyes in the Champagne region just north of the Burgundy region. The snake is most unusual in that its head is in the form of a dolphin's head. The dolphin has long been associated with the French monarchy (the crown prince's title was "Dauphin"), and this piece was most likely intended as an understated nod to royalist sympathies in the period when the Bourbon dynasty was restored to the throne following the Napoleonic Wars.