Spanning over an area of over 5,250 square meters, a palace kitchen in Istanbul's European side was once feeding over 5,000 people per day, during the heydays of the Ottoman Empire.

The continuous smoke coming out of a total of ten big chimneys of Topkapi Palace, possessing a striking view when looked from the Asian part of the city, used to be the symbol of the power and prosperity of the empire.

"To make palace kitchens and tables even more magnificent and splendid, the Ottoman Sultans in the 13th century began to collect the most beautiful samples of Chinese porcelain," Omur Tufan, manager of Topkapi Palace Museum Porcelain Collection, said to Xinhua.

It was a symbol of great wealth for the Sultans to present the dishes in these rare and unique examples of Chinese porcelains at weddings, circumcision ceremonies, and other important days, according to the manager.

Now, a nearly 12,000-piece collection of Chinese porcelain is on display in the Topkapi Palace Museum, revealing an uninterrupted historical chronology of the evolution of Chinese porcelains from the 13th to the 19th century.

"These are the ones that have been well preserved and remained to the present day," Tufan said. Historians believe that the actual number of Chinese porcelains used in the Ottoman palaces was over 100,000, but most of them were lost or destroyed in several earthquakes and fires.