Qibao burned ashes thin bamboo chicken vase

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

The bamboo pattern is the argument. Cloisonné enamel builds colour from the inside out, each cell a small field bounded by brass, so the vase 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 vase 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.