There are several large vases of triple-gourd form in the Charlottenburg Palace with the upper and lower lobes coated with gilt mirror black, and the central bulb enamelled with _famille verte_ colours; and another use of the glaze as panel decoration in a lustrous brown ground has already been noted in an extract from Père d’Entrecolles; it is also found on rare specimens as a background for panels of _famille verte_ enamelling. But its most effective use is as a pure monochrome only relieved by faint gilding, and some of the choicest K’ang Hsi specimens have soft brown reflexions in the lustre of the surface. Another and probably a later type of mirror black is a thick lacquer-like glaze with signs of minute crackle. There is a type of glaze which, though variegated with many tints, still belongs to the category of monochromes. This is the _flambé_, to use the suggestive French term which implies a surface shot with flame-like streaks of varying colour. This capricious colouring, the result of some chance action of the fire upon copper oxide in the glaze, had long been known to the Chinese potters. It appeared on the Chün Chou wares of the Sung and Yüan dynasties, and it must have occurred many times on the Ming copper monochromes; but up to the end of the K’ang Hsi period it seems to have been still more or less accidental on the Ching-tê Chên porcelain, if we can believe the circumstantial account written by Père d’Entrecolles in the year 1722[356]:--“I have been shown one of the porcelains which are called _yao pien_, or transmutation. This transmutation takes place in the kiln, and results from defective or excessive firing, or perhaps from other circumstances which are not easy to guess. This specimen which, according to the workman’s idea, is a failure and the child of pure chance, is none the less beautiful, and none the less valued. The potter had set out to make vases of _soufflé_ red. A hundred pieces were entirely spoilt, and the specimen in question came from the kiln with the appearance of a sort of agate. Were they but willing to take the risk and the expense of successive experiments, the potters would eventually discover the secret of making with certainty that which chance has produced in this solitary case. This is the way they learnt to make porcelain with the brilliant black glaze called _ou kim_ (_wu chin_); the caprice of the kiln determined this research, and the result was successful.” It is interesting to read how this specimen of _flambé_ resulted from the misfiring of a copper red glaze, no doubt a _sang de bœuf_; for in the most common type of _flambé_ red (see Plate 123, Fig. 1) passages of rich _sang de bœuf_ emerge from the welter of mingled grey, blue and purple tints. The last part of d’Entrecolles’ note was prophetic, for in the succeeding reigns the potters were able to produce the _flambé_ glaze at will.