DESCRIPTION: The herd boy on the buffalo is a theme found in the decorative arts of China and is taken from a poem entitled 'A Village at Dusk', written by Lei Zhen in the Northern Song period. The poem reads: “As the herd boy returns home, riding sideways on his water buffalo, he randomly plays a small flute...” Here this poem is beautifully depicted in ivory with a pair of boys sitting sideways on the backs of recumbent water buffalo, playing their flutes.