''Wucai'' (五彩, "Five colours", "Wuts'ai" in Wade-Giles) is a style of decorating white

Chinese porcelain Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construc ...

in a limited range of colours. It normally uses

underglaze Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...

cobalt blue for the design outline and some parts of the images, and

overglaze enamels Overglaze decoration, overglaze enamelling or on-glaze decoration is a method of decorating pottery, most often porcelain, where the coloured decoration is applied on top of the already fired and glazed surface, and then fixed in a second firing ...

in red, green, and yellow for the rest of the designs. Parts of the design, and some outlines of the rest, are painted in underglaze blue, and the piece is then glazed and fired. The rest of the design is then added in the overglaze enamels of different colours and the piece fired again at a lower temperature of about 850°C to 900°C. It has its origins in the ''

doucai ''Doucai'' () is a technique in painting Chinese porcelain, where parts of the design, and some outlines of the rest, are painted in underglaze blue, and the piece is then glazed and fired. The rest of the design is then added in overglaze enamel ...

'' technique. The usual distinction made with ''doucai'', which also combines underglaze blue with overglaze enamels in other colours, is that in ''wucai'' only parts of the design include blue, and these cover wider areas, and are often rather freely painted. In ''doucai'' the whole design is outlined in the blue, even if parts are overlaid by the enamels and invisible in the finished product. Some parts may also be painted in the blue. However, this is not true of all pieces classified as ''doucai'', especially from the 18th century onwards. Fragments of incomplete examples, only done in blue, have been excavated from waste tips at the kiln. The next development, ''

Famille verte Famille jaune, noire, rose, verte are terms used in the West to classify Chinese porcelain of the Qing dynasty by the dominant colour of its enamel palette. These wares were initially grouped under the French names of ("green family"), and (pink ...

'' (康熙五彩, ''Kangxi wucai'', also 素三彩, ''Susancai''), adopted in the Kangxi period (1662–1722), uses green and

iron red Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. All are black magnetic solids. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of whic ...

with other overglaze colours developed from ''wucai'', normally without any use of underglaze blue. In Japan it is pronounced ''gosai'' and was initially imported. '' Kinrande'' is a form that developed out of this during the time of the Ming dynasty. Recently Ming underglaze Wucai was reported in the US for the first time in history

Notes

References

* "Grove", Medley, Margaret,

Oxford Art Online Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press online gateway into art research, which was launched in 2008. It provides access to several online art reference works, including Grove Art Online (originally published in 1996 in a print version, ''T ...

, section "Ming; Jingdezhen porcelains, Polychome" in "China, §VIII, 3: Ceramics: Historical development" * Medley, Margaret, ''The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics'', 3rd edition, 1989, Phaidon, * Nillson, Jan-Eric
"Doucai Chinese porcelain decoration"
in ''Chinese porcelain glossary'', Gotheborg.com * Pierson, Stacey, ''From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain'', 2013, Hong Kong University Press, , 9789888139835
google books
* "Sotheby's"

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

Hong Kong, Sale HK0545 Lot: 1, 8 April 2014 * Valenstein, S. (1998).
A handbook of Chinese ceramics
', Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (fully online)

External links

{{commonscat Chinese porcelain Types of pottery decoration