Pigment lives inside the engraved channel, not on top of it — so the figure never wears off the way a painted surface would.
A single bowl takes seven to fifteen layers of thayo lacquer, each rubbed back before the next — months of waiting between every pass.
Red, then orpiment yellow, then a green of orpiment and indigo — revealed one at a time as the polisher cuts down through the strata.
Final polish with ash and bone leaves a glassy depth — a finish you can only fake by skipping the work, and a buyer can always tell.