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

With rounded sides and an incurved rim, the very heavy basin has a separately made disc-shaped base attached underneath, where it was supported during firing, and stands on three animal-mask feet. The masks are carved in relief with prominent eyes, eyebrows, and a raised dot on the forehead, the mouth seemingly biting a paw. The sides are decorated with a deeply carved begonia scroll, the blooms with hatched centre, on a combed ground. Two rows of applied star-shaped bosses are applied on a raised rib above and a groove below. The inside has an impressed roundel of cash diaper enclosing swastica motifs and an indistinct four-character inscription. The yellowish-green glaze leaves a large area inside and on the underside free of glaze, the base is inscribed in ink with the characters zhu yi (‘recorded, one’) in regular script and another character in concept script.