A Chinese porcelain vase, with ovoid body, tapering neck and splayed foot, the base glazed. Painted on one face is a bird perched on bamboo growing by a rock, and chrysanthemums, and on the reverse, further stems of bamboo. The mouth rim is cut down and mounted in gilt bronze, with a cover formed of a circular spreading ring of acanthus and interlaced ovals below an egg-moulded edge, and the top with overlapping ranks of petals with an acanthus-bud finial. From below the rim hang oak-leaf swags, and at either side spread a pair of angular flat handles, with reeded panels and guilloche panels ending at the shoulder in lion masks with loose pendent rings in their mouths resting on the sides (the vase is not pierced to take the mounts, although it is cut at the neck). The vase stands in a reeded band above a ring of berried laurel and shaped square plinth with pounced surface, the sides with reeded panels, with four projecting block feet with paterae at each corner.

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