The white-robed Avalokiteśvara

When the Jesuits arrived in China in the late 16th century, the missionaries associated representations of Guanyin with a child on her lap with the Virgin and the Christ Child. Large quantities of white porcelain (blanc de Chine) were exported to Japan where the Christian belief was forbidden for certain periods of time. Japanese Christians used such figurines as substitutes for representations of the Virgin and the Child.