Iranian and Chinese visitors attend the exhibition Longquan of the World: Longquan Celadon and Globalization at the Palace Museum, which uses the famed porcelain variety from Zhejiang province to showcase the prosperous Maritime Silk Road.[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

"This exhibition will show people how celadon originated in Zhejiang, and reached its peak in the Song Dynasty (960-1279)," he says.

The artifacts on display come in all shapes and sizes, and whether they were for daily use or for rituals, they reflect the different needs of consumers around the world. Whatever their purpose, the objects reflect their owners' taste for refinement.

After all, the Longquan Kilns were mainly used to serve the royal families during the Song and early Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, before celadon became a pillar of overseas trade in the 12th to 15th centuries.

"The products sold well around the world due to their high quality," he says. "Longquan celadon was an ambassador for Chinese porcelain overseas at that time. Its growing popularity also reflects how Chinese civilization began to gain recognition around the ancient world."

For example, during underwater archaeological research off the coast of South Korea in 1975, 18,000 Chinese porcelain items were discovered at a single shipwreck－10,000 of which were made in Longquan. The ship sank in 1323 on a voyage from Ningbo in Zhejiang province to Fukuoka in Japan.

When products from the Longquan Kilns were first introduced to France, they amazed the nobility there. However, since there was no word for this new type of ceramic, they named it after Celadon, a character in the popular opera L'Astree, who wore clothes of the same exquisite color, Geng explains.