Portrait Statues & Busts
Likeness-carved busts, half-figures and life-size standing statues in marble, granite and sandstone.
Huian, Quanzhou · Fujian, China
Custom stone portraits, carved to likeness
We carve portrait busts, life-size figures, religious statues and landscape sculpture in marble, granite and sandstone. You approve the clay maquette before a single chisel touches the stone — and you get dated photographs at every stage.
Reply within 24 hours. Write to sales@yantangstone.com or use the enquiry form — include a reference photograph and the finished height you want.
- Direct from the workshop — no trading company in between
- Clay maquette approved before any stone is cut
- Dated photographs at every carving stage
- Crating and export documents handled in-house
What we carve
Four lines of work, plus the crating that gets them to your port
Portrait, religious, landscape and one-off stone work — quoted per piece, carved in the workshop rather than subcontracted out.
Religious & Deity Statues
Guanyin, Buddha, Mazu, Guandi and custom deities, carved to your iconography and proportions — for temple halls, roadside shrines and family altars.
Garden & Landscape Sculpture
Fountain figures, animal sculptures, wall reliefs and abstract pieces, carved for the place they will stand in — outdoors, in weather, at scale.
Custom Commission & Restoration
The jobs that do not fit a category — enlargement from a scale model, replication in a different stone, or a damaged carving that needs assessing rather than replacing.
How a commission runs
From your reference photograph to a crate at the port
Reference and quoting
Send photographs or a drawing, the finished height you want, your stone preference if you have one, and the destination port or city. We come back with a price, a stone recommendation and a realistic timeline.
Clay maquette
We model the head or the figure — at 1:5 or full size depending on the job — and photograph it from four angles.
Your approval
You approve the maquette, or you tell us what is wrong and we change the model. Nothing is cut until you are satisfied with the likeness.
Carving, with photo reports
Dated photographs at each stage: the block before cutting, roughing out, detail work, finished surface. You see progress instead of asking about it.
Crating, documents, shipment
We crate the finished piece, photograph every case open and closed, prepare the export documents and book the shipment. Carving is only half of getting a piece to you intact.
Stone is unforgiving. Once you cut past the line there is no going back, which is why the likeness is settled in clay first. We model the head or figure, photograph it from four angles and send you the images. Only then do we touch the block.
Our workshop sits in Huian, Quanzhou — a district that has been cutting stone for more than a thousand years, and where the skills are still passed down by working beside someone who has done it for thirty. The carvers on your commission are the same people who work on temple figures and public monuments.
From the workshop
Our own photographs, taken on ordinary working days
Pieces on the bench and finished in the yard. These are our own photographs — no stock images, no renders presented as real work.
Stone and finish
The block is chosen for the place it will stand
We work in white marble, grey granite, sandstone and travertine. Which one is right depends on where the piece ends up more than on how it looks in a photograph.
| Stone | Character | Where we use it | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| White marble | Finest detail, cool bright surface | Portrait busts, interior figures, sheltered niches | Softens under long outdoor exposure; not for coastal sites |
| Grey granite | Holds detail, survives weather and salt | Outdoor figures, temple figures, fountains, plinths | Heavier; tool marks are slower to work out |
| Sandstone | Warm tone, good for large forms | Garden sculpture, architectural elements, relief panels | Weathers faster; can stain in polluted air |
| Travertine | Open texture, architectural character | Planters, landscape elements, wall pieces | Porous — needs thought in wet or freezing conditions |
Where our work travels
Most of our overseas work goes to Vietnam and Taiwan, China
The work splits roughly three ways: portrait commissions from photographs, religious and deity figures for temples and family altars, and landscape sculpture for gardens, hotels and resorts.
Because clients cannot walk into the yard and look at the stone, everything is photographed — the block before it is cut, the maquette from four angles, each carving stage, the finished surface and the crate closing. We handle the export documentation ourselves, because a missing certificate at the port costs the client more than any saving on the carving.
Tell us what you need carved
Send a reference photograph, the finished height you want and your destination port. We will come back with a price, a stone recommendation and a realistic timeline.