A porcelain collector has recently covered his Land Rover with about 10 thousand pieces of antique ceramics, triggering debate about whether he is preserving or spoiling the treasures.

The Land Rover, which he parks in front of his privately-owned porcelain museum "China House" in the northern port city of Tianjin, has been attracting crowds taking photos everyday, and the ceramics stuck on the SUV are worth an estimated 1 million yuan ($157,000).

Zhang Lianzhi, owner of the Land Rover and "China House," told Xinhua that he wishes to help Chinese porcelain gain more attention at home and abroad by displaying it this way.

"Before its retirement, my Land Rover has taken me to almost every corner of China to search and collect porcelain and ceramic chips over the last two decades," said Zhang, who also owns a Cantonese restaurant in Tianjin.

On Sina Weibo, a popular micro-blogging website, some users expressed their support for Zhang, while many others criticized him for displaying the ceramics in such a way.

Internet user "vividhom" posted, "it is so cool and stylish for the Land Rover to be decorated in a cloth of porcelain." "The car owner is so artistic!" wrote "feierniuniu."

"Jing Gu" posted that Zhang is merely flaunting his wealth. He is "a super rich man who wants to show off badly."

Zhang Lianzhi began to collect antiques after he ventured into business in the 1990s.

He spent a million yuan buying an antique building in downtown Tianjin in 2002. The building was once inhabited by French officials during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

During the following four years, Zhang built his private museum which now has 5,000 ancient porcelain vases and 300 white marble sculptures, more than 4,000 ancient porcelain plates and bowls, about 400 million pieces of ancient porcelain and 20 tonnes of natural crystals, worth a total of over 2 billion yuan.

About 80 percent of the porcelain used on the Land Rover and the museum is broken or damaged antiques. Many pieces has been pasted into the walls of the museum.

An interpreter of the museum said that the porcelain pieces stuck to Zhang's Land Rover and the house mainly made date from 618-1911.

Bian Zhengming, a national cultural relic appraiser, said, it is not a proper way to preserve porcelain by sticking them to the car and walls of the museum.

"Even not as perfect as complete artworks, those ceramic chips have remarkable significance to archaeological research," said Bian, "because we have to observe the structure of porcelain from the exterior to the interior to describe the uniqueness of the arts from different historical periods when doing research."

Ceramic chips with fractured surfaces are the greatest samples for the study of the ancient porcelain history, and those being displayed on the car may be spoiled by sun and rain, he said.

However, Zhang says most of the antiques he has are bowls and vases used by ordinary families in daily life, so they should also be allowed to be touched by today's people.

"Porcelain antiques may lose their value if they are preserved in cases, and my dream is to show Chinese porcelain culture to the world, in a high-profile way," said Zhang.

Currently, Zhang's team is devoted to designing small crafts made by ancient ceramic chips, such as buttons, necklaces, earrings and watches.