Doucai 斗彩, ‘fitted colours’, is used to describe porcelain that combines both underglaze blue and enamelled decoration. Cobalt blue pigment is used as an outline for the designs. The ware is then glazed and fired before being coloured in with overglaze enamels, in shades of red, green, yellow and purple.Although produced later during the Kangxi period, reign marks of an earlier period were often used on Qing imperial ceramics as an expression of respect for the early Ming Emperors such as Chenghua who commissioned high quality, innovative porcelain.
