What is Sancai in Chinese Art? | Focus on a Tang Dynasty Camel Sculpture

This camel in the Asian Art Museum was sculpted from clay and coated with different colored lead glazes called sancai in Chinese. What is sancai? Sancai means three colors san three and cai colors. Sancai was popular in northern China from the 600s to the 700s. Because lead is toxic, it was not used for everyday objects. Instead, it was used to color funerary objects like trays and vessels, as well as sculptures of figures, horses, guardians, and camels like the Asian Art Museum camel. The camel is colored in a rich amber glaze with cream accents, while its pack is defined in a luscious green that seems to drip down the camel's body. Notice how on one side of the camel, you can see that the amber glaze also drips down the body and especially the front leg of the camel. This is part of the sancai style or aesthetic. It has a modern feel to it, as the artists had creative liberty in how they applied the glaze in sometimes spontaneous ways. The amber color is achieved by adding a mineral pigment made from iron to the glaze, while the green is derived from copper mineral and the cream is a transparent glaze. Sancai wares were fired in a kiln twice. First, they were fired at a high temperature to harden the clay. Then, they were glazed with sancai and fired at a lower temperature to bring out the richness of the colors. The next time you visit a museum with a Chinese collection and encounter one of these gorgeous sculptures with dripping tricolored glaze, now you know this type of decoration is called sancai.