The copper body of the vase has an applied silver rim and base plate; the inner neck and interior of the base plate are both silver-gilt. The vase has a dark blue-black enamel ground with a silver yusen design of exotic long-tailed butterflies, the bodies of which have some shosen to define the curves of the body. The vase is a tour-de-force in which Hayashi has captured the feel of butterflies mingling together whilst retaining a sense of space around them. A wide range of opaque enamels have been used in combination with, for example on the upper butterfly, a transparent green-speckled enamel (similar to chakinseki). The interior of the base-plate is of silver-gilt and has the engraved six-character mark Aichi Hayashi Kodenji within a rectangular cartouche. There is an altogether far more naturalistic feeling to the butterflies portrayed on this piece than those, for example, on the well-known gourd-shaped vase of 1893 by Namikawa Yasuyuki in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. See Arts of East & West p.128, I-349 for Namikawa's vase.