The vase is decorated on the body with two large recessed panels, one containing a scene from the 14th century novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi) with Liu Bei and other officials and attendants approaching a boy opening a gate while Zhuge Liang sits inside playing the qin. The panel on the reverse contains a scene of nine elderly scholars and three boy attendants on a terrace, enjoying qin music and admiring a scroll painting. The neck is also decorated with two recessed panels, one with lotus flowers and leaves and the other with peony and rocks, and is flanked by two pink-enameled mythical beast-shaped handles. The panels are surrounded by Buddhist and Daoist emblems decorated in raised slip and blue and iron-red enamels, amid raised-slip bats and cloud scrolls, and scattered floral sprays and medallions on a pale celadon ground. The base and the interior are covered with pale turquoise enamel.