Water dropper in the shape of an immortal on a boat

We know from the Asian Art Museum’s own bronze ritual vessel in the shape of a rhinoceros (see page 120) that as early as the Shang dynasty (approx. 1600–1050 BCE) rhinoceroses heldpowerful supernatural significance in China. Rhinoceros horns functioned as drinking vessels, perhaps because of a belief in the horns’ healing properties. The Shennong Bencaojing (The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica, approx. 250 BCE) mentions rhinoceros horn in powdered form as a cure for colds; the late-Ming medicinal compendium Bencao gangmu by Li Shizhen (1518–1583) defines rhino horns as a panacea. Rhinoceros horns have a natural inner cavity. This lends to their use as containers; the cavity is bored through to the very tip. The horn is not a true bone but rather partially matted hair, similar in substance to human nails and composed of fibrous bundles of keratin. This enables it to be shaped by first softening it in heated water. After softening, carvers created the shape of this water dropper by fashioning the material into the form of a hollowed-out log. After forming the log shape, skilled carvers, who by the late-sixteenth century were based in the commercially vibrant city of Suzhou, adorned the log to create the scene. Flowering branches serve as a boat for a bearded scholar holding a cane. The subject likely draws from third-century tales of the search for immortality, during a craze of elixirs of longevity. This water dropper thus fulfills desires for longevity and health in both its pictorial content and material.