These blue and white Delft dishes feature an overall composition with every space filled with designs and borders inspired by Chinese export porcelain of different periods. The center of each lobed dish depicts a framed scene of a crane standing in water in a setting of abundant flora teeming with flying insects. This composition is based on earlier Chinese export kraak porcelain of the Wanli Period (1573 - 1620). The Dutch painter who executed this decoration may not have known that in the East the crane was a symbol of long life.

The inner border consists of an arched rim of peacock feathers alternating with a stylized scroll pattern. The wider, exterior border has slanting, radiating panels decorated with tall peacock feathers and flowers. Both borders are inspired by similar configurations appearing on Chinese porcelain of the Kangxi Period (1662 - 1722). The rims of the dishes are sculpted in an irregular scalloped pattern with a corresponding painted border just inside the white edge. Ella B. Schaap, from Delft Ceramics at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2003), p. 76.