This carving may represent the story of the Han Dynasty statesman and traveler, Zhang Qian, floating down the Yangtze river in a boat in the form of a hollow log. This was a popular theme during the late Ming and early Qing period and can be seen in other rhinoceros horn carvings of the period: one in the Shanghai Museum, signed Bao Tiancheng (a Ming Dynasty artist), included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Shanghai Museum, 6,000 Years of Chinese of Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, May-September 1983, Catalogue, no. 21; another from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, sold in our New York rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 17.