Jade is a highly valued material within Chinese artistic culture, and has been used for thousands of years for ritual objects, ceremonial weapons, small figurines, and dress ornaments. Until the 18th century, all jade used in China was nephrite (one of the two varieties of jade, the other being jadeite). It was mainly sourced from the riverbeds of Yarkand and Hotan, in the present-day autonomous region of Xinjiang. The material was prized for its beautiful, almost translucent, quality and the variety of colours in which it could be found. Objects made from jade would have been valuable because of their beauty as well as the effort required to make them; jade is too hard to be carved or cut with metal tools, and it would have been necessary to drill or saw it.

This oval jade ornament has a hole at the top, allowing it to be suspended. It would probably have been worn as an accessory. The milky-white colour is interspersed with patches of green, orange, and purple. On one side, there is an image of a fish next to a large leaf with curving fronds. On the other side is a representation of the same sort of leaf, but larger. Around the edges, the space is filled by curving motifs, as well as circles with diamond patterns in their centres. Within Chinese mythology, fish are symbols of wealth, because the word for fish (‘yu’) with a slightly different pronunciation means ‘abundance’ or ‘affluence’. Some species of fish have further meanings; carp in Chinese is ‘li’ which sounds like the word for ‘advantage’, and today these are used to express desire for success in business. The leaf shape is difficult to identify precisely, but if it is a stylised depiction of a lotus plant, in combination with the fish this would have the significance of wishing to live in abundance year after year. This ornament, therefore, may have functioned as a sort of good luck charm, with the intention of drawing wealth and success towards the one who wore it.