This lobed cup was made within the Mughal empire in the late 17th or early 18th century from a single block of pale green nephrite jade. Its handle is in the form of an acanthus leaf with a curling volute at the upper end. It rests on a low foot in the form of a flower and has flowering plants in low relief on each of its eight ribs. The cup was part of Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie's extensive collection of hardstones that also included objects made from agate and crystal. Some of the objects owned by this former member of the East India Company's army were bought by the Indian Museum in 1868 and were transferred to the South Kensington Museum in 1879. The decoration on the cup exemplifies the ubiquitous floral style of the arts under the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658) that continued under subsequent rulers. Guthrie acquired some of his pieces directly from the royal Sikh treasury in Lahore, presumably from the auctions that took place immediately after the annexation of the Punjab by the British in 1849. Others were said to have come from the Mughal treasury in Delhi after it was seized in 1857, but no record survives to indicate precisely which of his pieces came from which source.