Qianlong period enamel flower vase with Western figures

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

The figures pattern is the argument. Painted enamel builds colour from the inside out, each cell a small field bounded by brass, so the object 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 object like this outlived the fashion that produced it. The painted 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.