Page 16 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Dish with Rim are generally either pasted or soldered onto the porcelain and lacquer during the thirteenth
scalloped
....................................................................................
or
metal body. The glass paste, enamel, is col- and fourteenth centuries, and the shape con-
Ming dynasty, early 15th century
ored with metallic oxide and painted into the tinued in many media into the beginning of
Cloisonne
contained areas of the design. The vessel is usu- the fifteenth century. DPL
Diam. 6 in. (15.2 cm)
ally fired at relatively low temperature, about
Florence and Herbert
Purchase, Irving Gift, 1993 800 degrees centigrade. Enamels commonly
1993-338 shrink during firing, and the process repeated
is
several times to fill in the designs. Once this
n 1388 Cao Zhao (or Cao Mingzhong), in process completed, the surface of the vessel Pair of Parakeets
is
his influential Gegu Yaolun (Guide to the is rubbed until the edges of the cloisons are ....................................................................................
of
Study Antiquities), dismissed cloisonne as visible. They are then gilded, as on this dish, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-95)
fit for only lady's chambers. Less than fifty which also has gilding on its scalloped edges, Cloisonne
a
years later, during the reign of the aestheti- in the interior, and on the base. H. each 8 3/4 in. (22.2 cm)
G.
1929
cally inclined Xuande emperor, cloisonne Lively scrolling lotuses and acanthus leaves Gift ofEdward Kennedy,
a
became greatly prized and pieces high qual- are set against turquoise blue background 29.110.43,44
of
ity were produced for imperial use. on the interior (and parts of the exterior) of
Cloisonn6 is the technique of creating the dish. In Chinese examples dating to the n atelier dedicated to the production of
designs on metal vessels with colored-glass fifteenth century this background color is often cloisonne was one of the thirty or so
paste placed within enclosures made of copper combined with shades of red, yellow, cobalt imperial household workshops established in
or bronze wires, which have been bent or ham- blue, white, and dark green, which were not the Forbidden City by the Kangxi emperor in
mered into the desired pattern. Known as cloi- mixed but placed individually within each I693. During the late seventeenth century and
sons (French for "partitions"), the enclosures cloison. Scalloped dishes were first made in throughout the eighteenth, cloisonne was
I5