Cloisonné technique, also known as “copper-body filigree enamel”, is named “cloisonné” because it matured during the Jingtai period of the Ming Dynasty. Its technique uses copper as the body, and after rolling the thin copper wire flat, it is manually made into various patterns, which are pinched, welded, and attached to the body, and then applied with enamel glaze. After going through multiple processes such as firing, polishing, and gilding, the final finished product is produced.

Cloisonné technique is the product of the combination of foreign enamel techniques and local metal enamel craft. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, both the Imperial Supervision and the Manufacturing Office had enamel workshops specifically for the royal family, and the technique moved from maturity to glory. Since modern times, with the social instability, the cloisonné technique once declined. After 1949, due to the state’s adoption of active protection and support policies, this ancient technique was able to recover and develop rapidly.

Cloisonné technique is complex and has numerous processes. It combines bronze craft and enamel craft, inherits traditional painting and metal chisel-engraving craft, and reflects the tradition of mutual learning and reference among various traditional Chinese craft categories. Cloisonné products have an elegant shape, elaborate patterns, and rich and magnificent colors, with the characteristics of court art, giving people an artistic feeling of “round and solid, golden and brilliant”. It has high artistic value and has participated in many important exhibitions at home and abroad many times, winning honors for the motherland, and it is often used as a national gift to give to foreign guests.

Under the impact of the market economy, due to the bad operations of some practitioners, the artistic quality and technical level of cloisonné have declined, and a large number of inferior products flood the market, which has a bad influence. While the authentic cloisonné manufacturing factories are either bankrupt or on the verge of extinction, there are very few highly skilled cloisonné manufacturing masters and successors. If not rescued and protected, this excellent technique will decline or even be lost.