This adorable water dropper precisely describes a Javanese rhinoceros, with its stout horn and thick hide with prominent folds. The lifelike appearance suggests that the artist might have modeled the piece after a real animal, perhaps one in the imperial menagerie.
Copper alloy. China, Ming Dynasty, 15th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015.294
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/684577
