Cloisonné: Chinese enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties

Abstract

The technique of applying brilliant enamel ornament to metalwork known as cloisonné reached its peak in China beginning in the fourteenth century. This sumptuously illustrated survey, which accompanies an exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center, in collaboration with Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, publishes here for the first time research recently undertaken in China and France that has resulted in the redating of a number of objects, with significant implications for the overview of Chinese cloisonné production. Shapes, decorative patterns, function, and symbolism on cloisonné enamels are examined and explored in detail by experts in the field. The final section of the book reviews the impact of developments in China on later production in Europe, as well as the acquisition of cloisonné pieces by the major American museums and private collectors at the beginning of the twentieth century. --

Contents

The emergence of cloisonné enamels in China / Béatrice Quette -- Inscriptions and marks / Béatrice Quette -- Cloisonné form and decoration from the Yuan through the Qing dynasty / Béatrice Quette -- Beyond the women's quarters : meaning and function of cloisonné in the Ming and Qing dynasties / Pengliang Lu -- A reverence for the past : influences from Chinese antiquity / Rose Kerr -- Auspicious messages on cloisonné vessels / Terese Tse Bartholomew -- Scholar Zhang peeks at Yingying : thoughts on pictorial aspects of Chinese cloisonné and the relationship with painting / Claudia Brown -- Cloisonné for the imperial courts / Zhang Rong -- The revival of cloisonné enamel in France at the end of the nineteenth century / Odile Nouvel-Kammerer -- Early collections and displays of Chinese cloisonné enamel in Europe and the United States, 1860-1930 / Susan Weber -- Catalogue of the Exhibition / Béatrice Quette -- A technical study of early Chinese enamels / Isabelle Biron and Béatrice Quette.