Cafe au lait bowl, one of a pair

Since they were produced over a period of sixty years, Kangxi porcelains exhibit several changes in style and technical experimentation. These bowls, for instance, are decorated with the popular hundred antiques motif executed in standard famille verte colors. Rather than left white, however, the grounds of each vessel have been filled in with a light brown glaze commonly called cafe au lait by westerners. After the Kangxi period, the famille verte palette of enamels lost much of its popularity though it did continue in minor use throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.