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Subject:Cloisonné urn
Posted By: Kristjana Sun, Jul 19, 2015 IP: 89.160.144.48

Hi. My family has a cloisonné vase we would love to know more about. My grandfather bought it in an antique shop (not sure where) probably in the 40's or early 50's. It was covered in soot and my father remembers the excitement uncovering the pattern under all the black.

Can anyone here tell me anything about it?



Subject:Re: Cloisonné urn
Posted By: Kristjana Mon, Jul 20, 2015

This is on the bottom.



Subject:Decheng, Dexing
Posted By: beadiste Tue, Jul 21, 2015

Beatrice Quette, in Cloisonne: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties comments that during the Guangxu reign [1875-1909], there was a return to high-quality production. "Enamel colors became fresh, delicate, and varied ... Mixed colors were widely used, notably in skillfully rendered passages of shading. ... To polish the surface of the objects, finer stones were used ... resulting in a more uniform and brilliant surface."

The Decheng workshop was evidently doing such high quality work at this time, as was Lao Tian Li.

The mark on the bottom of your urn looks like the Decheng stamp.

The dragon handles, with their more 18th-century modeling and careful cloisonne work seem very different from works done in the past 60 years.
The enamel colors also seem more typical of the late-19th early 20th century and are beautifully composed. The more humorous taotie beast face puns seem quite different from the more resolutely antiquarian Qianlong versions, for example, and are far more elaborate than modern examples I've noticed while trawling eBay and online auctions. Many of these modern pieces are technically very skilled and have asking prices in the thousands of dollars, but I think your piece is their equal and then some.

Chinese collectors are beginning to be interested in these late-Qing early Republic pieces, as the workmanship is very fine and the prices are reasonable compared to the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars that Ming and Qianlong pieces command.

I still think it's worth an inquiry to an auction house,or perhaps Lark Mason from Antiques Roadshow. The Lark Mason website states:

We offer free informal auction estimates and identification of property. To submit your inquiry, please fill out our valuations form or schedule an appointment to bring your items by our gallery.
http://larkmasonassociates.com/

URL Title :Blog post about Decheng atelier


Subject:Re: Decheng, Dexing
Posted By: Kristjana Tue, Jul 21, 2015

Thank you for a great answer. I would love to take it for an appraisal but I live in Iceland so that would be hard!

But it's great knowing more about it so thank you :)

Subject:Re: Cloisonné urn
Posted By: Bill H Mon, Jul 20, 2015

Early 50's would be about right. Forum contributor Beadiste has been studying cloisonné of the early People's Republic of China, so may have some input for you.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Subject:Google "taotie cloisonne"
Posted By: beadiste Mon, Jul 20, 2015

...and you'll find other examples of pieces similar to yours, especially from the late Qing dynasty.
Alas, I have no expertise in antique Chinese cloisonne, so I hope other forum participants don't think I'm being presumptuous for suggesting this, but I wonder if sending a query to an auction house such as Christie's might be worthwhile?

Your piece seems especially well crafted, with more whimsical beast faces. The Taotie face is an interesting design for an artist to explore, full of visual puns, and one can still see it featured in elaborate large contemporary cloisonne pieces.

Does your piece have any sort of mark on the base?


URL Title :The Taotie


Subject:Re: Google "taotie cloisonne"
Posted By: Kristjana Tue, Jul 21, 2015

There is a picture of the mark in the first comment :)

I might just send an email to Christies and ask if they can tell me anything.

Subject:Same style of taotie motifs on pair of Christie's vases
Posted By: beadiste Tue, Jul 21, 2015

$3328 thirteen years ago in 2002.




URL Title :Christie\'s vase pair


Subject:Re: Same style of taotie motifs on pair of Christie's vases
Posted By: Bill H Tue, Jul 21, 2015

I believe a case possibly still might be made for Kristjana's vase being later than the pair auctioned by Christie's. The latter vases look older to me, though still 20th century, with earlier looking enamels and design elements like the thunder fret (key fret) and scepter head "ruyi" devices where you'd expect to find them traditionally. Kristjana's vase has pattern adaptations that seem to update it to a deco look, perhaps produced circa the time of the Teh Hsing Ch'eng (De Xing Cheng) flyer you pictured on your website in February (link below). Do you see any merit in such a view?

http://www.beadiste.com/2015/02/puzzling-evidence-clue-about-dexing-or.html

Best regards,

Bill H.

Subject:Guangxu
Posted By: beadiste Wed, Jul 22, 2015

I agree, Bill, the Christie's vases have a less sleek, more old-school appearance in the enamel color combinations and less precise wire work.

Kristjana's vase is so well done that at first I thought it might be a contemporary reproduction, such as the Beijing Enamel Company is manufacturing now. I wondered if a contemporary cloisonne artist took note of the Christie's sale, and did some elaborations on the theme.

However,
1) Kristjana's story eliminates any production within the last 15 years
2) The motifs are just too similar, and I couldn't convince myself that a modern copier could so exactly capture the style of them. The Christie's vases seem like a simpler, perhaps earlier or cheaper design, while Kristjana's vase looks as if the artist had more liberty to do a more elaborate, elegant piece. These things often take weeks or months to create, remember.
3) The post-WWI Deco era was so chaotic, I don't see the match between wealthy clientele and highly skilled workshop that Katjana's vase would require. And in 1937, remember, the Japanese invaded and cloisonne production seemed to go to hell in a handbasket.
4) The later Guangxu reign seems to fit better - imperial patronage, fine cloisonne being made. So late Qing seems likeliest to me.

The link shows a well-crafted pair of vases with a Guangxu seal, perhaps useful to compare style and craftsmanship with Katjana's piece. They don't exactly match, which makes the Guangxu attribution more likely, it seems to me. Better contemporary pieces look as if they were rolled off a machine assembly line, and cheaper pieces feature sloppier wirework. Nice works from the 1920s seems to favor the Qianlong character seal - guessing that at the time, so close to the 1908 demise of the Qing dynasty, the Guangxu seal had zero cachet. So the seal on these pieces might well be authentic, as nobody thought it worthwhile to fake.

URL Title :Pair of Guanxu cloisonne vases


Subject:Assuming the vase pair wasn't made in the 1990s...
Posted By: beadiste Fri, Jul 24, 2015

By then the Quangxu seal might have been viewed as worth faking?

Subject:Chinese Zodiac Animals?
Posted By: beadiste Sun, Jul 26, 2015

Bill -

The taotie creatures seemed so far removed from the classic taotie design that I wondered what the artist was trying to convey. Between the urn and the Christie's vase pair I'm pretty sure I can see a rabbit, goat/ram, ox, monkey, tiger, snake, boar ... all morphing into dragons. Whoever came up with these designs was no slouch as a draftsman.
And I agree with you that the overall effect of Katjana's urn is more "modern" and Deco-like than the Christie's vase pair. Could it be a LaoTianLi effort from the era of the St. Louis 1904 or San Francisco Panama-Pacific 1915 exhibitions?

(If anyone can locate rat, horse, rooster and dog, do let us know)

Subject:Ebay search
Posted By: beadiste Tue, Jul 21, 2015

A simple search on "beast face cloisonne" will produce some alarming representative examples. I see no sales, at least via eBay.

I think you'll be able to see how well crafted your piece is by comparison.


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