Image descriptions aimed at the realization of content-based image retrieval (CBIR) should include the vagueness of both data representations and user queries. Here we show how multiscale textural gradient can be used as an efficient visual cue for image description. This feature has been already efficiently used in problems of image segmentation and texture separation. Our main idea is based on the assumption that, for image description, shape and textures should be considered together within a unified model. We report an efficient image description algorithm where the multiscale analysis is modeled by a differential morphological filter. Experiments with large image databases and comparisons with classical methods are reported.