Sancai

Sancai (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; literally: "three colours") is a versatile type of decoration on Chinese pottery mainly using the three colors of brown, green, and a creamy off-white for decoration. It is particularly associated with the Tang Dynasty and its tomb figures. Therefore, it is commonly referred to as Chinese: 唐三彩 Tang Sancai in Chinese.

It uses lead-glazed earthenware, and was much easier and therefore cheaper to make than Chinese porcelain, and suitable for making large figures, if necessary made up of several molded sections assembled after a first firing. Flatware dishes and other vessels were made in the technique as well as figures.

The body of sancai ceramics was made of white clay, coated with colored glaze, and fired at a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. Sancai is a type of lead-glazed earthenware: lead oxide was the principal flux in the glaze, often mixed with quartz in the proportion of 3:1. The polychrome effect was obtained by using as coloring agents copper (which turns green), iron (which turns brownish yellow), and less often manganese and cobalt (which turns blue).

Sancai follows the development of green-glazed pottery dating back to the Han period (25-220 AD).

Predecessors to the sancai style can also be seen in some Northern Qi (550-577) ceramic works. Northern Qi tombs have revealed some beautiful artifacts, such as porcellaneous ware with splashed green designs, previously thought to have been developed under the Tang dynasty. Such a jar has been found in a Northern Qi tomb, which was closed in 576 AD, and is considered as a precursor of the Tang sancai style of ceramics.

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