Two standing miniature Westerners

This figurative piece of a family portrait, dressed in Western attire, was a popular export item. Here, the father and son, dressed in Western clothes, stand in a formal posture with a pet dog and a potted plant at their feet. Whether these motifs were an attempt to retain attributes familiar to a Chinese audience or were intended as exotic details for a Western audience remains unclear.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.