Sang de boeuf glaze

Sang de boeuf glaze, or sang-de-boeuf, is a deep red colour of ceramic glaze, first appearing in Chinese porcelain at the start of the 18th century. The name is French, meaning "ox blood" (or cow blood), and the glaze and the colour sang de boeuf are also called ox-blood or oxblood in English, in this and other contexts. Sang de boeuf was one of a number of new "flambé" glazes, marked by "unpredictable but highly decorative and varying effects", developed in the Jingdezhen porcelain kilns during the Kangxi reign (1662–1722). According to one scholar: "In its finer examples, this spectacular glaze gives the impression that one is gazing through a limpid surface layer, which is slightly crazed and strewn with countless bubbles, to the color that lies underneath". As with most Chinese red glazes, the main colouring agent is copper oxide, fired in a reducing atmosphere (without oxygen); finishing them in an oxidizing atmosphere may have been part of the process. From the late 19th century onwards, usually after lengthy experiment, many Western potters produced versions of the Chinese glaze, which is technically very difficult to achieve and control. For Chinese ceramics, some museums and books prefer the term "sang de boeuf", some "oxblood", in both cases with varying use of hyphens, and capitals and italics for "sang de boeuf". The most common Chinese name for the glaze is lángyáohóng (郎窑红, "Lang kiln red"). Another Chinese name for this type of glaze is niúxiěhóng (牛血红, "ox-blood red/sang de boeuf"). Sang de boeuf glaze was apparently developed around 1705–1712 in an attempt to recover the lost "sacrificial red" glaze of the Xuande reign (1426–35) of the Ming dynasty. This was a very famous glaze used for ceremonial (ritual) wares made at Jingdezhen, of which very few examples survive from his short reign. As recorded in the Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty, from 1369, the second year of Hongwu Emperor's reign at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, monochrome porcelains replaced other materials for the ritual vessels used in the official rituals of sacrifices the emperor was required by tradition to perform, hence the name "sacrificial red".