A Gilt-Bronze 'Boy and Buffalo' paperweight Ming Dynasty, 16th Century

finely-cast as a reclining buffalo with its head turned to the right, the hooves tucked under its muscular body, the feathery tail curled alongside its right haunch, its horns, neck and facial features well defined, with a small boy clambering up its backside, his animated face with a smiling expression, the legs outstretched and pulling a rope attached through the nostrils of the buffalo

Gilt-bronze paperweights in the form of a boy riding a buffalo are rare, although this subject matter is well known from other mediums, see a miniature bamboo carving of a water buffalo with a boy on its back illustrated in the Masterpieces of Chinese Miniature Crafts in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, pl. 11; and a jade figure of a boy seated on a reclining buffalo, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Zhongguo yuqi quanji, vol. 6, Shijiazhuang, 1993, pl. 272.