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- mass production methods and division of labour, so that a single porcelain piece after being thrown, moulded and painted might have passed through as many as seventy hands before firing.
Amongst the most famous porcelains of Kangxi�s reign were the monochromes, with their elegant shapes and aesthetic charm. The list of monochrome glazes is a long one and includes: pale blue (clair de lune or moon white), mirror black (either plain or decorated with gilt designs) [37, 38], shades of brown (chocolate, cafe au lait, dead leaf and old gold), turquoise blue [46, 47, viii], and aubergine violet. However, the most outstanding monochrome is a red derived from copper, known in the west as sang de boeuf (ox-blood) and known in Chinese as Langyao, because it is believed to have been first produced under the direction of Lang Tingji, the Governor of Jiangxi [26, 28, v]. This glaze demanded great skill from the potter in controlling the kiln draft since the main firing had to be done in a reducing atmosphere but had to conclude at the last moment with a strong oxidizing period. To some ceramic specialists, an even more attractive monochrome is a red glaze called �peach bloom� [vna] which sometimes has patches of �apple green� [vnb] forming a very pleasant harmony of the two colours. The monochrome glaze called powder blue was also popular at this time. Cobalt powder was blown on the ceramic object through gauze stretched over the mouth of a bamboo tube, and then glazed [51]. Sometimes it was pencilled over with a delicate gilt design [x] or used as a ground broken by panels with polychrome decorations [62].
The monochromes for palace services included yellow [xv], green, purple and white. The white wares were often decorated with anhua or hidden decorations such as five-claw dragons, which were incised into the paste, and were usually only visible when held up to the light [32].
Jingdezhen, though the largest, was by no means the only Chinese ceramic centre during the Qing. Amongst the others, the foremost was Dehua in Fujian province, where a beautiful white monochrome porcelain, known as blanc de Chine in the West, was produced [33-36].
Another of the great accomplishments of the Jingdezhen potters working under Cang Yingxuan was in the field of enamels, of which two kinds had already been developed by the end of the Ming dynasty: the wucai (five colours) which is enamelled over
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