This ceramic jar was created in imitation of a bronze vessel; the vessel form, a standard bronze type known as a Hu, dates back as much as a millennia. It is decorated with a molded frieze depicting animals in a landscape. The animal motifs present here - a rampant tiger, deer, birds in flight - are similar to those commonly found on late Zhou era (771-256 BCE) bronze vessels. The landscape elements, however, are more closely related to the illustrations of landscapes found on tiles lining the walls of contemporaneous Han-era tombs.

Lead glazes appear to have been imported from the Mediterranean, where the method was used to imitate the look of metal, just as it was in Han China. Molded lead-glazed wares were produced in West Asia for export as early as the late second century BCE, and the technology appears to have made its way to East Asia by sometime during the Western Han era.

The use of lead glaze was both more difficult and more expensive than iron glaze, another type used by Han potters. For this reason, lead-glaze wares were often interred in Han burial sites to accompany the wealthy deceased. The greenish iron-glazed vessels seem to have served for daily use rather than grave goods, and it was in the efforts of Han potters to refine and improve their use of iron glazes that the first steps were taken towards the development of the celadon tradition in China.