The porcelain columns straight-sided and hollow, each column is painted all round on a pale blue ground with five flying dragons in iron-red, blue, green, yellow and crimson, with scaly bodies and four-clawed feet in white enamel, among multicoloured clouds, with, above, a gilt band and a border with blue key-fret and blooms on a yellow ground. The column is topped by a gilt-bronze hexagonal moulding with a frieze of pointed overlaid leaves largely obscuring the painted border, on top of which is fixed a pedestal with an acanthus leaf-cast domed base with a pounced ground, with scrolled foliate feet supporting a five-branched candelabra, consisting of four branches surrounding a central column. Two candelabra with two-tier outscrolled acanthus collars issuing four conforming branches, around a central column formed of four tiers of palms below overhanging reeded leaves, and, below, lotus leaves and a nozzle (of slightly different cast quality). Two candelabra of broadly similar design, but with two lotus-leaf cups, one just above the reeded collar and one on top of a gilt bronze tube, forming the nozzle for the central candle. The four scrolled candle branches of the same design. Around the base of the columns are palms with stylised flowers between. The column stands on a broader hexagonal stepped base of wood carved with leaves and gilt with a white-painted collar, on a broader white-painted wood plinth, with panels with mouldings outlined in gilt relief, the whole set on a stepped, leaf-moulded gilt base.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume II.