Luoyang in Henan province is a city with a long history. Luoyang has been the capital for many dynasties through out Chinese history. Gao Xiaofei was born in a village near Luoyang. His family has been trading and repairing antiques for generations. Gao has a special interest in pottery. Inspired by the exquisiteness of the ancient pottery sculptures, he started his workshop replicating the artworks in 1994.
His quality replicas are often purchased and resold as originals by the merchants. Gao told us, “I want to put a stop to sell my work as the originals, but I have no control over once the item is sold. I just want to let people know, the originals are all priceless, if you see someone sell the ‘original’ for less than 100,000 us dollars, it has to be a replica.” Gao also works as pottery repair artist for the Luoyang Museum.