Wonderful Hand-Carved Marble Drum Stool (?) with Variety of Flowers storage and signed C

and signed C

Not to everyone's taste

1870s or so--is so finely done

creating work well into his nineties

and sporting stick figures

Wonderful Hand-Carved Marble Drum Stool (?) with Variety of Flowers storage and signed CI 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