Dehua Ceramics Museum

Dehua Ceramics Museum is the first one of its kind in Fujian Province, boasting a comprehensive collection of ceramic wares. It is a major venue for Dehua County to promote ceramic culture and showcase its exquisite ceramic craftsmanship and long history of ceramics. 

The museum is located at 17 Xuefu Road, Xunzhong Town, Dehua County, adjacent to Quanzhou Arts and Crafts Vocational College. It covers an area of 50 mu (3.3 hectares) and has a total floor area of 5,700 square meters. This two-storey antique building with a frame structure comprises six exhibition halls, an academic lecture hall, a reference room, a warehouse, a monitoring room and so on. Construction of the building began in October 2003, and the museum was completed and opened to the public in October 2006. 

At present, the lobby on the first floor of the museum is inlaid with a high relief mural made of 520 pieces of Dehua white porcelain, measuring 13 meters long and 2.6 meters wide. The exhibition halls on the first floor, with a total floor area of 1,400 square meters, present 1,000-plus objects that demonstrate the history of Dehua ceramics. Centered on historical evolution, the exhibition systematically showcases the development and great achievements of Dehua ceramics throughout the ages. It consists of seven sections: “Unmatched Millennium-old Kilns”, “Song-Yuan Porcelain Coming to the Fore”, “Unique Ming-Dynasty White Porcelain”, “Exquisite Qing-Dynasty Blue-and-White Porcelain”, “Famed Maritime Silk and Porcelain Road”, “Republican-era Porcelain Steeped in Tradition”, and “Flourishing Land of Porcelain”. The exhibition fully demonstrates artistic characteristics, trade situation and humanistic connotation of Dehua ceramic production technology. It also illustrates the historical position and function of Dehua Kilns, and captures the industriousness, ingenuity and pioneering spirit of the people in this porcelain capital. There are three exhibition halls on the second floor of the museum: One of them showcases the 500 Arhat Figurines Made by the Great Master Qiu Shuangjiong, while the other two halls host different exhibitions from time to time. 

In March 31, 2008, Dehua Ceramics Museum started offering free admissions to the public. In May 2009, the museum was rated as a “Level-II National Museum” by the National Cultural Heritage Administration. In December 2009, it was designated as a “National Popular Science Education Base” by the China Association for Science and Technology. In August 2012, it was rated as a “Level-I Museum of Fujian Province” by the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Fujian Provincial Burea of Cultural Heritage.