Wonderful Hand-Carved Marble Drum Stool (?) with Variety of Flowers old metal buttons but I don't quite get

but I don't quite get the release

In addition to being wonderfully done

with what looks like Liu—which I have not been able to trace

" writes Miller in the introduction

into which painted glass "eyes" (pieces of glass painted black and white) were inserted (one is in place

Wonderful Hand-Carved Marble Drum Stool (?) with Variety of Flowers old metal buttons but I don't quite getI really love this, but am not sure where it came from or exactly how it was intended to be used. The form, and the motifs circling top and bottom, suggest a Chinese marble "drum stool", traditionally used as as a resting spot in a Chinese garden, but this is about half the size of a stool one would sit on, and the carving of the flowers. especially, looks very much like folk art (and really very much like the school girl drawings of flowers I like so