Porcelain collector draws ire after car decoration

A porcelain collector who recently covered his Land Rover with about 10,000 pieces of antique ceramics, has triggered fierce debate about whether he is preserving or spoiling the treasures.

The Land Rover, which he parks in front of his privately-owned porcelain museum "China House" in the northern port city of Tianjin, has been attracting crowds taking photos, who have heard that the thousands of broken bits of ceramics stuck on the SUV are still worth a staggering estimated 1 million yuan ($157,000).

Zhang Lianzhi, the owner of both the Land Rover and of the "China House" nearby, insists the unusual display is simply because he wants to help Chinese porcelain gain more attention at home and abroad by displaying it this way.

"Before its retirement, my Land Rover has taken me to almost every corner of China to search and collect porcelain and ceramic chips over the last two decades," said Zhang, who also owns a Cantonese restaurant in Tianjin.

On Sina weibo, the popular micro-blogging website, some users have been expressing their support for Zhang, but many others have been criticized him for displaying the ceramics in such a way.

One user "vividhom" posted, "it is so cool and stylish for the Land Rover to be decorated in a cloth of porcelain."

"The owner is so artistic!" wrote "fei'erniuniu."

But "Jing Gu" posted that Zhang is merely flaunting his wealth, "a super rich man who wants to show off badly."

Zhang Lianzhi began collecting antiques in the 1990s.

He spent a million yuan buying an antique building in downtown Tianjin in 2002, once inhabited by French officials during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

During the next four years, he built his private museum which now has 5,000 ancient porcelain vases and 300 white marble sculptures, more than 4,000 ancient porcelain plates and bowls, about 400 million pieces of ancient porcelain and 20 tons of natural crystals, worth a total of over 2 billion yuan.

About 80 percent of the porcelain used on the Land Rover and the museum is broken or damaged antiques and there are many other pieces pasted into the walls of the museum.

An interpreter at the museum said that the porcelain pieces stuck to Zhang's Land Rover and the house mainly made date from 618-1911.

But strongly against the whole concept is Bian Zhengming, a national cultural relic appraiser, who has suggested it's improper to preserve porcelain by sticking it to the car and walls of the museum.

"Even though they are not as perfect as complete artworks, those ceramic chips have remarkable significance to archaeological research, because we have to observe the structure of porcelain from the exterior to the interior to describe the uniqueness of the arts from different historical periods when doing research," said Bian.

Ceramic chips with fractured surfaces are the greatest examples of the study of ancient porcelain history, and those being displayed on the car may be spoiled by sunshine and rain, he said.

However, Zhang claimed most of the antiques he has are bowls and vases used by ordinary families in daily life, so they should also be allowed to be touched by people nowadays.

"Porcelain antiques may lose their value if they are preserved in cases, and my dream is to show Chinese porcelain culture to the world, in a high-profile way," he insisted.

Currently, Zhang's team is also devoted to designing small crafts made by ancient ceramic chips, such as buttons, necklaces, earrings and watches.