One of China's unique traditional arts and crafts. It is made of copper tire inlays and filled with enamel glaze, which is fired, polished, gilded or silver. There are various shapes of utensils.

But there is one thing that is recognized by the academic community: during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, it was the advantage of China's cloisonne production technology, and it was raised to a new level, reaching a glorious stage, and the word "cloisonne" was born. The glaze color is fat, the silk work is rough, and the decoration is rich.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the cloisonné craft has been famous all over the world, and a large number of them have been exported abroad, becoming ornaments in overseas aristocratic families. The cloisonné shape is more uniform and varied than that of the Ming Dynasty, the copper wire is thin and uniform, the filigree technique is more silky and graceful, and the decoration is flexible and exquisite.

The application range of utensils is more expanded than before, in addition to the court temple ritual utensils often made in the Ming Dynasty, there are also snuff bottles, screens, incense burners, screens, tables and chairs, coffee tables, chopsticks, bowls and so on.

According to the production method, it can be roughly divided into cloisonné enamel, infill enamel (i.e., inlaid enamel), painted enamel, etc. Cloisonné enamel and inlaid enamel have appeared in China for a long time, and historical records can be traced back to the Song and Yuan dynasties, but the real production in China should be Genghis Khan in the Yuan Dynasty to attack the big food, take the craftsmen captive back to make it, and introduce the skill to the Central Plains. In the Ming Dynasty, cloisonné enamel began to be widely produced and applied in the Yongxuan court, and then the cloisonne period was the most famous, that is, the "cloisonne" that people commonly said.

Metal tire enamel can be divided into several varieties such as cloisonné enamel, chisel enamel, painting enamel and transparent enamel according to the specific processing technology in the production process.

There are two main kinds of enamelware, one is the copper cloisonné enamel derived from Persia, which was transmitted to China in the Mengyuan period, and began to be fired in large quantities in the Ming Dynasty, and reached a peak in the Jingtai period, which was called "cloisonne" in later generations. Since then, cloisonné has become synonymous with copper cloisonné enamelware. The other is the enamel painting technique from Europe, which was introduced to China during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty.

Cloisonné enamel ware was most common in the Ming Jingtai and Chenghua dynasties, after which the level of craftsmanship decreased significantly. The cloisonné process of the Qing Dynasty is thin, the filigree is fine, and the color glaze is also brighter than that of the Ming Dynasty. The patterns are complex and diverse. Although the products of the Qianlong period cannot be compared with the Jingtai and Chenghua periods, they are by no means inferior to the products after Hongzhi and Zhengde.

After the enamel painting technology was introduced to China, it was developed in the Kang, Yong, and Qian dynasties, and the works of the three dynasties had their own characteristics in terms of modeling, glaze, ornamentation, and inscription.

The glaze of the painted enamel ware of the Kangxi period is bright and clean, and the decoration is mainly composed of sketched flowers and patterned flowers.

The painting enamel ware type of Yongzheng period is neatly made, and the black glaze is shiny and bright, surpassing the Kang and Qian dynasties.

During the Qianlong period, the decoration of painted enamel ware tended to be "dense" and "meticulous", and there were more decorative methods combining Chinese and Western styles, and the phenomenon of combining painting enamel with filling enamel and cloisonné enamel appeared in the process.

How can you identify it? Here are a few points for your reference:

A look at the characteristics: the Ming Dynasty enamel by the inner court of the imperial superintendent burning, there are cloisonné enamel and chisel enamel two kinds, there are the chronological style of the cloisonné enamel, only see Xuande, Jingtai, Jiajing, Wanli year number. The cloisonné enamel of the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty is divided into coarse silk light glaze and uniform silk thick glaze, the cloisonné is finer and more uniform than the Ming Dynasty, although the glaze color is not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, but the fetal bone is thick and solid, and the shape of the vessel is mainly small vessels such as cups, bowls, boxes, plates, and furnaces.

Second, look at the copper tire: there are two main kinds of copper tires for enamelware, the most important of which is the forged copper tire, and the other is the chisel tire. The real enamel pays attention to the thin and flat light, if the high imitation enamel on the market is a forging copper tire, it can achieve a thin tire and a light body, and must be treated carefully.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the fetal bones were slightly thicker, and they became thinner in the middle and late periods. In the Qing Dynasty, from the Kangxi period, the fetal bones were thick and solid, and they were thinned by the end of the Qing Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, the filigree of artifacts was often broken, but in the Qing Dynasty, due to the purity of copper and the improvement of firing and polishing techniques, this phenomenon basically disappeared. The gilding of the Ming Dynasty utensils is thinner, there is often the phenomenon of wearing, especially in the Qianlong period, the gilding is heavy, the gilding technology is far better than that of the Ming Dynasty, and the gilding of the utensils is still brilliant.

Three look at the pulp: to distinguish between the old and the new of the old enamel and the high imitation leather shell, we must first see whether the old light is natural, then see whether the pulp is one, and finally see whether the feel is jerky.

The glaze of the newly made enamel ware is mostly polished with fine sandpaper or abrasive sand and abrasive paste, first ground to remove the thief light, and then used acid and potassium permanganate, rosin perfume or other mixed solutions to intensify the bite erosion treatment. The biting old color is relatively easy to identify, and if you look carefully: one is the color is not correct, the second is uneven, and the third is jerky to the touch.

Fourth, look at the style: the enamel is not inscribed at random, there are certain formats and regulations. Different ages have different era names, and collectors can identify them according to the glyphs, fonts, etc. The existing Ming and Qing dynasties of the second generation of cloisonné enamel forms are summarized, and there are roughly three kinds of chisels, filigree and engraving.

In the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, there were three types of enamel ware: casting, double-hooking, and enamel glaze firing. There are two kinds of regular script and seal script, of which regular script accounts for the vast majority. The number of words has "Xuande year", "Xuande year" four-character paragraph and "Ming Xuande year" six-character paragraph.

There are straight single rows, straight double rows, straight three rows and horizontal rows. Some of the styles of this period are located at the bottom of the vessel, and some are engraved on the edge of the mouth, lid or inner edge of the vessel. The style of writing is solemn and handsome, similar to that of metal and porcelain of the same period.

The Qing Dynasty cloisonné enamel has a variety of styles, and the methods of making models include casting, carving, and hollowing. The style of reading includes Kai, seal, imitation Song, etc. (imitation Song style was first seen in the Qianlong period), of which regular script is the majority.

Design fetal drawings, silk drawings, blueprints (blue color drafts): First of all, designers design tire drawings, silk drawings, blueprints (blue color drafts), and convert them into copies of paper drafts for the next process application.

First, the copper sheet is cut out of various shapes according to the requirements of the drawing, and the copper tire of various shapes is hammered with an iron hammer, and then the various parts are connected with the flux, and after high temperature welding, it becomes the shape of the copper tire of the utensil.

Use tweezers to pinch and break the flattened fine copper wire into a variety of exquisite patterns, and then dip it in Baiji to adhere to the copper tire, and then sieve the silver solder powder, and after roasting at a high temperature of 900 degrees, the copper wire pattern is firmly welded on the copper tire.

After the cloisonné process, the carcass can enter the blue process after welding, pickling, flattening, and sizing processes. The blue is the artist prepares the enamel glaze in advance, according to the color indicated in the pattern, with a small spade-shaped tool made of copper wire hammer, and fills the enamel glaze into the soldered copper wire decoration frame with a shovel.

It is to fill the whole carcass with color glaze, and then take it to the blast furnace with a furnace temperature of about 800 °C with some mineral stone powder as fuel to bake, the color glaze is melted into liquid by sand granular solid, and becomes a gorgeous color glaze fixed on the carcass after cooling, at this time the color glaze is lower than the height of the copper wire, so the color glaze has to be filled again, and then sintered, generally four or five times in a row, until the pattern is filled to the level with the filigree pattern.

It is to use coarse sand stone, yellowstone, charcoal to grind the uneven blue glaze in three times, all uneven places need to be repeatedly polished after the glaze is melted, and finally with charcoal, scraper will not have the blue glaze of the copper wire, bottom line, mouth line scraped and polished.

After pickling, decontamination and shaping, the smoothed and polished cloisonne is put into the gold-plated liquid residue, and then the current is passed, and the gold liquid is firmly attached to the cloisonne metal part after a few minutes. After washing, rinsing and drying, a colorful and dazzling cloisonné stands out. The gold-plated cloisonné is matched with a delicately carved hardwood base, which shows the graceful and luxurious, dignified and beautiful posture of cloisonné.

With the continuous development of cloisonné and the needs of the market, some special-shaped products, practical products, tourist souvenirs and high, large, fine, sharp, high-grade cloisonne mass production, new varieties, new colors, new processes continue to emerge, jade carving, wood carving, lacquer art and filigree inlay and other processes combined, due to a variety of crafts ingenious combination, various materials set off each other, plus the whole body and inlaid with a large number of gemstones, but also make the work novel and peculiar, exquisitely clear, the whole body exudes jewelry.