Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The tall vases are imitating a metal form (fang gu), of rectangular section, moulded in two vertical halves, with a wide squared centre, angled shoulder collar, waisted neck with everted rim, raised ribs in the middle, flanked by two fish handles, and waisted lower part with baluster-shaped foot. The fish are well modelled as carp, with ring-shaped eyes, curved bodies with overlapping scales, and forked tails. Front and reverse are similarly decorated in moulded relief, each with two identical trigrams, consisting of three unbroken lines, on a lozenge-diaper ground on one side and a honey-comb diaper on the reverse, enclosed in panels with foliate surrounds. The shoulder collar shows moulded petal motifs, the lower part petal panels on either side of central raised ribs, and the foot is decorated with bulbous ruyi motifs simulating shaped legs of a pedestal. A luting line is visible at the neck. The opaque olive-green glaze leaves the footring exposed in the brick-red biscuit.