Pei Yongzhong, an artist from Jingde, Jiangxi Province, spent five years creating a 241.2-meter porcelain painting. Guinness World Records recently certified it to be the longest of its kind.

The porcelain work consists of 242 independent parts, each depicting a scene from "Dream of the Red Chamber," the greatest Chinese novel of all time. Each part is 76 centimeters long and 57 centimeters high. The total length includes the painting's wooden frame. There are more than 3,800 figures in the painting.

Pei said he is a literature enthusiast and likes "Dream of the Red Chamber" very much. He started working on the painting in 2004, using various traditional and innovative methods. He spent more than 5 million yuan (US$732,339) and completed it in the second half of 2009.

Pei was born in 1969 in Jiangxi. As a veteran ceramic artist, he is famous for creating figure and scenery porcelain paintings. He has created porcelain portraits for many leaders, including former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.