Donnelly in Blanc de Chine, New York, 1969, illustrates two vertical flutes (xiao), pl. 68A, and notes that they are slightly different in length and diameter due to shrinkage in firing and yet sound the same fundamental, in this case 'd', which was the fundamental of the late Ming period. He also notes that "by the middle years of the seventeenth century the production of these instruments at Tehua was sufficient to merit a separate section in the Min Xiao-ji", where they are described as "lustrous white in colour and of fine quality but only one or two in a hundred are in tune. Of those that are, however, the sound is sad but clear, carrying far better than the bamboo (flute)"

Other flutes are in the Percival David Foundation, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, 1982, no. 199 and in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 11, 1961, fig. 232. Compare, also, one illustrated by Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994, vol. 2, no. 997