Altar vessels were used for making offerings of food, flowers and wine besides burning candles and incense sticks. Altar trays such as this example could have used to hold wine cups. They were usually made of porcelain and occasionally of silver. Porcelain of different colours were used at the different altars in Peranakan Chinese homes. Coral red is an auspicious colour on Nonyaware. It occurs rarely possibly because the colour was reserved for imperial use in China.
