Born in Ji County, Hebei Province, Sun Yingzhou (1893-1966) was a famous collector and connoisseur of pottery and porcelain. As a young man he worked for Tong Chun Yong and several other antique shops in Beijing. In 1923 he opened his own antique shop, Dunhua Zhai, and operated it successfully. He found himself specialising in the ceramics of the Jin and Tang dynasties, in the products of the five famous kilns of the Song dynasty, as well as those from the official kilns of the Ming and Qing dynasties. As he became more experienced, he was able to arrive at certain standards for authenticating ceramics. At the same time he was accumulating a fine personal collection. So passionate was he in deepening his research that he went several times to Jingdezhen, capital of pottery and porcelain, to learn at first hand about firing methods in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

In 1956 Sun was invited to work in the Palace Museum as a researcher and appraiser of ancient ceramics. During the 1950s and 1960s he enriched the collection of the Palace Museum by donating over 3,000 cultural relics, including 2,000 pieces of ceramics. Among them are a Chenghua-period cup with a design of autumn flowers and butterflies in contrasting colors and 25 other pieces of ceramics of similar distinction.

Sun also re-appraised all the porcelain in the Palace Museum collection. He enthusiastically trained up many young experts and distilled his knowledge and experience into eight seminal essays, which remain useful reference works today.