"Three Europeans, one big lion and three little lions gather together, and the people are happy, and the lions are also happy..." The white-glazed lion-riding statue of Dehua Kiln is now in the Shishi Haisi Museum, which is obviously a sample Customized Dehua Porcelain Trade Items, or "Ship Out Items". In 1702, the East India merchant ship Dashwood arrived in England from Xiamen, and the list of goods recorded "man riding a monster", "man riding a horse", "man riding an antelope", "man riding a dolphin", "man riding a lion", "man riding a goat"" A man rides a dragon".

In recent years, many of the goods that were shipped out in those years have returned again. Many local collectors in Dehua have bought back a lot of fine Dehua kiln ceramics from overseas, and found that foreign collections are not only ceramics with exotic styles, but also many traditional ones. of ceramic products. Appreciate carefully the statue of a man riding a lion. The European on the ground is holding "Brother Kong Fang".

The Dehua Ceramics Museum has collected more than 10 foreign books dedicated to Dehua ceramics, among which is "China White-Fujian Dehua Porcelain" by British collector Donnelly. This book writes: "Augustus Hercules has no less than 155 small lion-shaped water drops." What is the use of a foreigner collecting so many water drops? They don't use a brush to write. In addition to the water droplets, in the 160 pages of illustrations in this book, there are as many as 44 pieces of porcelain lions or lion-element ceramics, almost covering the domestic porcelain lion styles, and many of them are rare domestic masterpieces. For example, there is a picture of a pair of lion porcelain sculptures without cannulation in the early 18th century. Porcelain lions have been used as incense sticks in Dehua for a long time. They are practical utensils, and most of them are kept in tombs. Only when the intubation is removed, porcelain lions are upgraded to desk ornaments and entered the ranks of the study. This porcelain pair of lions is an early demonstration of this evolution.

The book also mentions two European couples sitting on a big lion and bringing a cub, which was brought to New Netherland (an old place name in America) by Olaf Van Cortlandt in 1638. It can be seen from this that the sample customization of Dehua ceramics was not later than the Ming Dynasty.

In 1850, the British Edmund Getty published the book "Chinese Seals Discovered in Ireland", which studied more than 70 white-glazed porcelain seals found in Dublin, Belfast and the ruins of Alnwick Castle. It was produced by Dehua Kiln in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the earliest one found was in the forty-five years of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (1780). These seals often use lions as buttons, and the printed texts are mostly "Singing Wind and Moon", "Yiting Moon", "Breeze on the River", "Water and Sky One Color", "Pushing oneself and others", "Join the world", which are idle chapters.

What is the purpose of European nobles buying and collecting ceramic products that are not very useful for life, and even have aesthetic conflicts? Donnelly gave this answer: "Dehua's export porcelain is divided into three categories. The smallest category, although the most interesting and important, is that kind of custom-made export porcelain... However, the majority of export porcelain is those that can be used everywhere. Chinese daily utensils ... The last category is those Chinese applications that are sold abroad as decorations or curiosities."

Simply put, foreigners think Dehua porcelain is fun to buy and play with! Of course, part of it is also for scientific research. It is said that King Augustus vigorously advocated and implemented the imitation of Chinese export porcelain, which gave birth to the modern European porcelain industry. At that time, Dehua Kiln, as a remote folk kiln, opened up a new way, traveled across the ocean, and strived to create an "international model" of Chinese ceramics.