This writing or pen box held pens, inks of different colours, sand for blotting, and small rolls of paper. Such boxes were status symbols for the officials who owned them. Brass boxes inlaid with precious metals, like this one, were the most prestigious, though their shape imitated wooden boxes.

Objects made from base materials such as brass were often transformed by sophisticated inlaid surface ornament. For larger motifs, metalworkers chiselled out small areas of brass and filled them with thin sheets of silver, gold and copper. They added details by chasing the surface of the softer metals and created contrast with a black filler. The results were an unusually graphic form of decoration, often of great quality.