Tongzhi style cloisonné enamel ewer with lotus pattern

This ewer is cloisonné enamel, the craft where metal is bent, filled with glass and fired until colour sits flush in a wired cell. the 同治 workshop made it a court speciality.

The lotus pattern is the argument. Cloisonné enamel builds colour from the inside out, each cell a small field bounded by brass, so the ewer reads as order made visible.

Enamel ware let the court turn its oldest forms into its newest materials, fire and metal standing in for ink and bronze.

A ewer like this outlived the fashion that produced it. The cloisonné enamel still glows, which is the only immortality the workshop ever promised.

Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.