This vase and cover very clearly illustrate the skills of the craftsmen who were producing fine objects during the 18th century within the Mughal empire. Each component has been expertly fashioned from a single piece of nephrite jade, which is a hard and durable material that requires patience and skill to work. The nephrite is pale greenish grey with veins of black or dark grey fleck-like inclusions. The pot resembles an opium poppy seed pod in profile, and is slightly squat with a short, wide and slightly flared neck. The short, slightly flared foot has been recessed and carved as a four-petalled flower whose slightly forward-curling petal tips form the foot rim. The interior is smooth and lightly polished and the exterior has been decorated with designs carved in low relief. Around the neck is a band resembling overlapping, rippled petals. Around the top and bottom of the body there are bands of leaf-like motifs and the sides have flowering plants rising from the lower band. On opposite sides of the pot, from the lower band, a leaf frond rises from which a carved and pierced, drooping leaf and flower bud emerge from the body of the vase to form the handles. There are a number of natural cracks and flaws distributed around the body. In the 19th century, the vessel belonged to the renowned collector of Indian hardstones, Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie. He sold it with other objects to the Indian Museum in Leadenhall Street, London, in 1868. They were all transferred to the South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, in 1879.