An emblem of endurance, the “Three Friends of Winter” motif comprises plum, bamboo, and pine. This dish features pale pink plum blossoms, the earliest harbingers of spring, and bamboo, its leaves always green and its trunk straight but flexible. The abstract shape represents the strong, twisted limbs of the evergreen pine tree. The motif first appears on Chinese porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), when artists, scholars, and bureaucrats faced profound regime change under Mongol rule, but its message of perseverance remained popular. Five hundred years later, wealthy Japanese households might have dishes like these, used once or twice to celebrate the New Year before food damaged the golden surface.