This dramatic bottle appears to be unique since it is the only one known in the material. The stone appears to be that used for making natural pictorial panels, which was mined around the town of Dali in Yunnan province. It is found with layers of different colours, usually creamy to beige-white and various shades of dark brown to black, but it can also be found with green or even reddish-brown layers. The stone is usually sliced into panels no more than half an inch thick, at a slight angle to the thin layers of colour, so as to create alternating bands suggesting landscapes and other subjects. Here, however, a number of alternating layers have been used vertically, the cylindrical form showing them off to their best advantage and leaving natural panels on each side neatly framed by further alternating bands. The effect is dramatic and delightful.

This is a soft stone which handles well and acquires a soft patina quickly. The artist has simply incised one panel with blossoming prunus, beloved of the literati for its symbolism, and added a three-character inscription. All the work would have been done directly with an 'iron-brush', the seal-carving tool of the literati, and therefore may have been done by a scholar himself rather than by a craftsman.