The populated mountainscape on the body of this vessel exemplifies the type of decoration often found on clay and bronze wine warmers and cosmetic containers. Hunters and anthropomorphic figures with bearlike heads pursue tigers, lions, bears, and griffins in a landscape of rolling hills. Two figures are walking through the mountains carrying long poles and wearing distinctive hats that are astonishingly similar to the conical straw hats worn in China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Spritelike creatures also inhabit this world. The sense of movement in the rolling shapes of the mountains and the vivacious depiction of the figures and animals in the landscape help date this cylindrical vessel to the 1st century BCE.

Landscape and hunting scenes were common in the art of the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-CE 9), and many different meanings have been attributed to this type of imagery. The scenes of hunting illustrate the importance of this sport for royalty. Mountainscapes are also often interpreted as images of the mythical land of Penglai, an imaginary mountain paradise inhabited by immortals and other semidivine creatures, said to be located in either the western mountains or the eastern seas. Belief in magical worlds such as Penglai had begun as early as the 4th century BCE. By the Western Han period, interest in the land of the immortals had become more widespread and more concrete. It was believed that such a paradise could be found and that an elixir of immortality could be obtained there.

The numerous humanoid and animal mythical beings represented on this vessel exemplify the intense interest in auspicious omens (xiangrui) found in Han thought and culture. Many of the more common motifs in the visual arts, such as dragons, unicorns, winged horses, and other composite creatures as well as images of beings not entirely human, are examples of the astonishing variety of auspicious omens cited in Han literature and historical records. The spritelike beings depicted on this wine-warming vessel were common images in the southern part of China once ruled by the state of Chu and are believed to represent immortals (xian) or transformed beings that subsist on dew and jade.