The Tiger Hill clay figurine's exquisite sculpting technique is the ancient 3D printing!

Suzhou clay sculpture, commonly known as 'colored sculpture' or 'clay toy', is one of the four major clay sculptures in China, including playthings, molded figures, hand-molded opera characters, and silk-dressed clay figurines. Since Tiger Hill produces fertile clay, the shops are all concentrated around the Shantang area of Tiger Hill, hence the name 'Tiger Hill clay figurines'. In Suzhou clay sculpture, 'playthings' refer to clay toys, also known as 'earthly figures'. The 'plaything shops' that produce and sell opera clay figurines, such as 'Old Rongxing', 'Old Rongtai', 'Jinhecheng', 'Wangchunji' and others, were located outside the city near Tiger Hill Shantang in the late Qing Dynasty, while the most notable one inside the city was 'Shen Wanfeng Plaything Shop' next to the auspicious gate of Xuanmiao Temple's Leizun Hall. The history of Suzhou clay sculpture can be traced back to the 'hair-cutting and tattooed' pottery figurines unearthed 6000 years ago, made of grey pottery. Yang Huizhi of the Tang Dynasty, hailed as the 'Master of Sculpture', created the sculpted Arhats on the walls of the Baosheng Temple in Luozhen, which might be his genuine sculptures. During the Song Dynasty, a large number of daily-use ceramics, toy-making pottery molds, and crucibles for melting metals were unearthed at the Pingquanfang site, proving that this place was originally a concentration of teahouses, taverns, and various handicraft workshops. Chenghu, also known as Chenhu or Chen Lake, where puppet figures with strings were discovered underwater.