states that the gilding, the decoration with gold, was done completely by hand.
Real gold can be applied to porcelain in various ways, the most common being either the use of gold leaf directly or via honey gilding, a process in which powdered gold leaf is mixed with honey to create a mixture that can be applied per brush. Both methods are not very easy to master and of course require a lot of manual work, including polishing. A certain galvanic process often dubbed fusing is another method which uses real gold, however that is more an industrial mass-production approach.
All above stands in opposition to fool's gold, a blend of various metals and chemicals which often contain only minimal amounts of gold (if any). It is mostly found on cheap transfer- or template-decorated items; an educated eye can often easily spot the difference between real gold and the look-alike.
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