With a baluster body rising to a rounded shoulder and straight wide neck, the exterior delicately painted with dense bouquets of mixed flowers, all blooming against a ground of thick foliage, the rim gilt, the interior and the base enamelled turquoise, the latter inscribed with a six-character Qianlong seal mark in iron red within a square reserved in white. The ‘Mille Fleur’ decoration, in Chinese ‘wan hua dui’ meaning the "ten thousand flowers abundance", symbolized "all the flowers bestow their blessings" first appeared in the late Yongzheng period, becoming extremely popular in the Qianlong, and was carried on throughout the subsequent Jiaqing and Daoguang periods. With its multitude of enamel colors, complex and densely interwoven layout, naturalistic representation of blooms and leaves, this design must have been one of the most challenging for the imperial porcelain painters to master. A large Qianlong baluster vase (48 cms high) with this decoration is in the Musée Guimet, Paris, was recorded in 《Ming Qing Ciqi Jianding 》, Forbidden City Publishing House, Geng Baochang 1993, page 517, pl.127. The same vase was also illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World'sGreat Collection 》, Kondasha Series, Japan, 1981, vol. 7, pl. 52; and a slightly smaller compressed pear-shaped vase is in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by He Li,《Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey 》New York, 1996, no. 665. A Jiaqing 'millefleurs' pear-shaped vase has also been recorded, one in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in 《Chugoku Toji Zensh》vol. 21, Jingdezhen Polychrome Ceramics, Japan, 1981, pl. 144.