Boxwood (huang yang mu) carving of ‘Zhang Guolao (張果老) who is one of the Eight Immortals. Among the Eight Immortals, Zhang Guolao, Zhongli Quan and Lu Yan were real historical figures. The rest exist only in legend. Zhang Guolao lived in the Tang dynasty. The word ‘Lao’ added at the end of his name means ‘old’. Elder Zhang Guo was a Taoist alchemist (方士) who lived as a hermit in the mountains and claimed to be several hundred years old. He was also known as a master of a Taoist movement, breathing & meditation technique known as qigong and he could go without food for days, surviving on only a few sips of wine. Zhang Guo Lao had a white mule and when he stopped traveling, he could fold his mule up and place it in his pocket. When he wished to use the mule again, he poured water on it from his mouth and the mule regained its form. His emblem is a Yü Ku (鱼鼓), which is a long and slender bamboo drum with a dried fish skin stretched over one end. Two iron rods inside the drum were used as rattling devices. This carving shows him with his fish drum. It entered our collection in 1968 and was discovered in a small oriental shop in the Eastern part of the Netherlands together with four other carvings of Immortals. In total there should have been eight Immortals but three had already been sold. The carving of these figures is of an exceptional quality. They were made around the early 1960’s or late 1950’s. Four of the stands are later replacements. Size without stand: Height 10 cm. Width 4.5 cm. Depth 3.5 cm.