This is a small seated figure of a luohan (arhat or arahant in Sanskrit) wearing a cowl over his head in greenish cream glaze. The piece was thickly moulded, perhaps with some additional incising to add to the depth of the folds in the robes. Luohans are sages who have been emancipated from the cycle of rebirth and suffering and realised the Buddhist doctrine (or dharma).Dehua, located on the southeast coast of Fujian province, is well known for its production of white porcelain, known to Europeans as 'blanc de Chine'. The earliest Dehua porcelain was produced as early as the 14th century but the production and quality of these porcelain peaked around the 17th and 18th centuries.
