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I have been in possession of this small (2.5 inch tall) Chinese Bronze Cloisonn� Vase for over 30 years, it was bought at a flea market in California.
Over the past years I have tried to identify the age of it, without much luck. I have over the past two years with the help of a friend narrowed it down to being very old, possibly early Qing, or late Ming or earlier.
The vase is very unique, we have looked at literally thousands of Chinese pieces of art and have not come even remotely close to seeing anything like it. The size and intricate work that went into it is of a superb craftsmanship, the dragon, which is of the imperial type with 117 scales and 5 toes, is one of a kind, and I have never seen another one that even comes close to looking like it.
In the pictures that I am sending, the one looking from the top, you will see that the ring has three spots, the one on the left is where the a ring was affixed, the one on the right is a small dent and the one in the middle is a seam, where the long neck was cut down the length of it, if you look at another picture you will see the largest line of (we have called them clouds) of clouds, if you look closely (you cannot see this in the picture, but need to look with a magnifying glass), you can see where it has again been cut. Below this lower cut you can see a fine line that runs parallel with the lower cut. It appears obvious that the top half of this vase has been removed and then reattached before the Cloisonn� was applied. I remember reading an article one time that said things would sometimes be written inside of vessels by the artisan.
What I am in need of help with is the next step, and that is to identify the date of this vessel. I have no idea how to go about this. I have contacted a few people about this and have not had much luck. One man did tell me that he would not Carbon Date it because it would probably destroy the Cloisonn� on it, he suggested to have it chemically dated, again, I have no idea where to go or who to contact in having this procedure don�t, if you can give some information on some places where this is done, it would help in this quest to find out more about this vessel.
I am sorry, but I cannot reduce the size of the pictures, if I had another place so send these I would like to get someone to look at them, again I'm sorry!
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