From an historical point of view many decorations, glazes and color combinations have come out of use. Alongside the traditional repertoire several new designs has been developed for the modern taste. Nowadays almost all high volume items are decorated by decal application. From the designs it is apparent that Asia is the most important market. Several exciting monochromes such as peach bloom, robins egg and tea dust - that became popular during the 18th century and needed specialist knowledge, a generous budget and wood firing, I am not certain anybody are capable of making any more.

To this day one are still painting under the glaze, on the glaze and in combinations. The latter technique in which you sometimes have the outlines or part of the decoration painted in cobalt under the glaze and part of the decoration in enamels on the glaze surface, is called doucai or "separated colors" in Jingdezhen. This "simple" explanation is of course not undisputed among western scholars.

In the world of European scholars this decoration is considered typical for the period of Chenghua (1465-87). Interesting enough Chinese road workers put their spades in the ground outside the gates of the old imperial porcelain factory and to everybody's astonishment found broken shards of plates with this kind of decoration from at least half a century earlier, from 1433-35. The world of oriental art connoisseurs have since the been forced to reconsider a lot of things thanks to recent excavations in the area.

Decorations depending exclusively on light or shape for its effect, such as carving, incising, cutting, engraving and applications et cetera are rare in modern wares. A version of the traditional pierced linglung (devils work) decoration has become a standard issue in modern Chinese porcelains, i.e. "rice grain" decoration. It is quite interesting to see how this is made by piercing holes in the thick walled "rough" pieces, how the holes are filled with transparent glaze and the piece is finally turned to its final thickness on a lathe.

Eggshell thin porcelain has become increasingly popular during the last century. They are available with very different quality of the decoration, the body being close to impossibly thin, approaching that of light bulb glass. Most popular shapes are bowls and vases.