Vase offers a glimpse of intrigue

Chinese artwork in Bulgaria, with intricate decorations, suggests creative genius and a capacity to forge connections across borders, Yang Feiyue reports.

Lian Mian has seen his fair share of porcelain. Yet, when the art history professor from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, stepped into the quiet halls of the Regional Ethnographic Museum of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in 2023, a Chinese porcelain vase dating back to 1954 caught him off guard.

It left him with the feeling that he had stumbled upon something truly unique.

"I was invited there for Dragon Boat Festival that year, and then the museum director, Angel Yankov, showed me their Chinese collection. That's when I first encountered this piece," he recalls.