The presence in a private collection in New York of a bottle of very similar design, but with the large cartouches containing similar sages, one with a pine tree, one with a plum tree, and one with bamboo, testifies to a mistake on the part of our painter, who did not include a bamboo, only painting two pine trees, thus failing to depict the 'Three Friends'. So similar is the style of the decoration that the painting in the cartouches of these two bottles are almost certainly the work of one painter. In all probability, the background had been painted by a less-skilled artist; for evidence of this division of labour, see no. 45.