Chinese cloisonné revisited

Abstract

Two papers examining Ming cloisonné enamels on metal and Chinese fahua glazes on ceramics were published in 1989. The analytical work was carried out at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford University, and all the cloisonné vessels analysed were dated to the later Ming Dynasty (Ming: 1368–1644). Various parallels and differences emerged from the studies, particularly regarding the extensive use of potassium oxide as a glass network modifier in both traditions. The cloisonné analyses, however, showed a number of novel features, such as the use of opaque enamels containing fluorite-opacified glass and enamel compositions that seemed to be mixtures of these glasses with lead-rich materials. Colourants such as lead-stannate yellow and iron-copper red were also found in later Ming cloisonné enamels, which at the time seemed without precedent in Chinese glass or glaze technology. Since this original work was published, a number of papers on earlier Ming cloisonné as well as on cloisonné enamels made during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) have appeared. Data on some 400 years of Chinese cloisonné production are therefore now available for consideration, and our current understanding of this technology is reviewed in the present paper. In addition, some recent finds of both fluorite-opacified glasses and high-lead glasses, dating to the Liao (907–1125) and Southern Song Dynasties (1127–1279), respectively, may throw some light on the earlier background to China's cloisonné enamel traditions.