Box butter dish corn cob in slip

Charming box, a butter dish maybe or just to present and keep hot the ear of corn on the table, unless there is another use that I do not know. It is beautifully colored glazed ceramic, quite realistic. Below the stamp lotus 1997 china, which is relatively surprising, I would have bet that it came from portugal, but so it is a later chinese copy, but of good quality. The whole is in good condition, no crack, but 5 or 6 small gins or missing on the enamelling on the leaf-shaped tray. The leaf measures 21.5 cm by 9.5 cm, the ear measures 18 cm in length for a diameter of 7.5 cm. The whole weighs about 350 g.