Chinese Porcelain Figurines

What type of Chinese porcelain figurines or statues do we find mostly in Chinese culture?

Actually, the porcelain figurines remaining today indicate that porcelain found only limited use for figurines in ancient China. Purely decorative items are relatively rare. Most figurines can be categorized as follows:

Religious

• Buddha and Boddhisattva figurines for the house altar, etc.Best known are the white Dehua Guanyin figurines or the so-called laughing Buddha. Due to their size such figurines would usually be used for the house altar.
• Daoist deities for the house altar, made in porcelain.
• Figurines of the eight immortals or Lohans (Arhats in Sanskrit).

• Most of these are made of pottery, not porcelain and are of larger size, located outdoors, etc.

• Figurines showing people and everyday life.

• A variety of birds including parrots

• Following the example of others, in the Qianlong reign Jingdezhen started making replica of real-life items like certain fruits, crabs, etc.
  
  Old Shiwan Lion
  (Foo Dog)
  
  

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