Naturalistically modelled as a seated cat with alert upright ears, bulging eyes and an open mouth, the head pierced at the crown with a circular aperture to receive incense. The animal wears a collar secured with three bosses suspending long tasseled pendants falling over the chest. Its coat is freely painted in underglaze cobalt blue with irregular patches, while stylised flame motifs decorate the breast. Beneath its raised left forepaw the cat restrains a mouse, an auspicious emblem of vigilance and domestic prosperity. The long tail curls around the right side of the body.

The figure is integrally moulded on a rectangular plinth, each side decorated with moulded ruyi-head cartouches reserved against a diaper ground, the front further embellished with flowing ribbons. The hollow interior is glazed and fitted with an integral cylindrical socket to receive a joss stick, while the separate stand originally served to support a taper or incense stick.

The present cat belongs to an exceptionally rare group. Writing in 'One Hundred Years', Stuart Marchant noted that the present example had been acquired in Japan in November 2008 and described it as a possibly unique survival, observing that no other example then appeared to have been recorded. Subsequent research has confirmed the extreme rarity of the model, although several closely related incense burners in the form of Buddhist lions are known.

Comparable lion-form incense burners with virtually identical rectangular plinths and associated incense-holder stands are illustrated by Sir Michael Butler, 'Chinese Porcelain: The Transitional Period, 1620–1683', 1986, no. 4, and again in 'Seventeenth Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family Collection', 1990, no. 7. Another related lion is preserved in the Tokyo National Museum and illustrated by Masahiko Kawahara, 'Ko-sometsuke', Monochrome Section, no. 121, while a further example from the Roy C. Leventritt Collection is now in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

Incense-holder stands in the form of cats are also represented among the cargo recovered from the Hatcher Junk, which sank in the South China Sea circa 1643, demonstrating that these unusual sculptural wares formed part of the export trade to Japan and Southeast Asia during the early seventeenth century. An example is illustrated by Colin Sheaf and Richard Kilburn, 'The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes: The Complete Record', 1988, pl. 111, p. 71, and by Jessica Harrison-Hall, 'Ming Ceramics in the British Museum', no. 12:19.