Wucai · five-colour enamels
Wucai Fish Dish
五彩网眼鱼藻纹盘
overglaze wucai enamels 五彩painted over the glaze
Carp glide through waterweed over a net-pattern ground in the wucai (“five colour”) manner: iron red, green, yellow and aubergine painted over the fired glaze, then fixed in a second, lower-temperature firing. Fish-and-waterweed is one of the oldest good-fortune motifs — “fish” and “abundance” share a sound in Chinese.
Wucai is the direct ancestor of the coloured-enamel style you can choose for your own commission.
Where it lives now 现藏
Documented in a public collection (image released CC0 via Wikimedia Commons) — view in the collection →