Pearl beading and applied motifs, typical of Yuan Jingdezhen porcelain, may have drawn inspiration from the decoration of Bodhisattva figures, which were also produced at these kilns. Vessels of this type, made just before the widespread adoption of underglaze-blue painting, are often exceptionally thin-walled and delicate.
One example, shaped like a peach blossom with pointed petals and adorned with beaded decoration along the outer edges, was excavated in Xi’an and is now held by the Shaanxi Provincial Museum (Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi [Porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty], Beijing, 1998, pl. 417). A related hexafoil dragon-handled cup, featuring lobed contours with beaded borders and a central prunus blossom, is preserved in the Severance and Greta Millikin collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Michael R. Cunningham et al., Masterworks of Asian Art, Cleveland, 1998, p. 69). A closely related stem cup, formerly in the Meiyintang and J.J. Lally & Co. collections, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25 May 2022, lot 454.