The wide body of this vase is decorated with a hunting scene in which a stag, doe, hare, and hound chase each other around the vessel. Dotted lines above and below the animals form a border around the scene, though the heads of the creatures occasionally poke above it. While larger barbotine decorations were usually mold made and applied to a leather-hard surface, the figures on our pot were piped on by hand.
This carving was made to appeal to Europeans and Americans in Central Africa, and did not draw from local aesthetics. It depicts an "elephant bridge," where the pachyderms are arranged with trunks and tails touching along the natural curve of an ivory tusk. Such compositions were often made in Japan, India, or China.