Puzzling Evidence - Dragon's Gate Plate with Pink Enamel

A blog reader sent these pics of a charming plate:

A mighty carp broaching the rapids of the Dragon's Gate to achieve apotheosis as a dragon?

Shape, gilding, and back design in the style of DeCheng plates?

The rim features a clever combination of the Buddhist 8 Auspicious Symbols and the Daoist Attributes of the Eight Immortals, very  neatly executed, with carefully applied background diaper of what appear to be either clouds or water ripples, a motif in use from Ming onward.

Notable also is the lavish use of pink enamel as the dominant background color instead of the more usual turquoise blue.  The Chinese word for cloisonne is "Jing Tai Lan" - the blue of Jing Tai - because the Ming emperor Jing Tai was supposed to especially favor cloisonne of a rich turquoise blue.   Pink glass requires costly gold chloride, prepared by various rather technical chemical processes.  Because cloisonne enamels start out as pieces of glass that are then finely ground before being applied to metal work and fired to re-melt the glass, pink enamel would likely have been an expensive luxury. Pink enamel in cloisonne does not seem to appear until the QianLong period in the 18th century, so the 1700s would be the earliest dating for this plate.  By the late 1800s, however, newer technology at the Boshan glassworks could well have been producing rich opaque pinks, so perhaps the cloisonne workshops that were given a boost in the 1890s by imperial support might have experimented with the increased availability of this lovely color.

Also of interest are the black and light opaque purple enamels. And what about the style in which the dragon is depicted?

This is such a delightful, colorful piece, it makes me wonder if it was a special birthday present for some lucky little boy with wealthy parents?

When do you think it might have been made? 18th century? Early 19th century? Late 19th century?  Early 20th century?

UPDATE (April 18, 2021) 

Since this was first published, another similar plate in black turned up, with an inscription on the back.

Also a bowl featuring a similar style of dragon gate theme, seemingly consistent with a late-Qing - 1920s dating;

Puzzling Evidence - Deco Chinese Charm Jewelry 1930s

A previous post discussed the similarities in pieces of 1930s costume jewelry that seem to have been made by a single workshop.  Two more pieces from this suite have turned up:

eBay vendor wondollar has on offer a beautiful brooch featuring gilded filigree and gemstone dangles:

Could some of these stones be Chinese amazonite?

A similar pagoda roof brooch can be seen in a prior post about Deco-era Chinese cloisonne beads:

Etsy vendor bomoseenbrat also has on offer an extravagant gilded filigree charm necklace:

The prior blog post shows other versions of this design.  bomoseenbrat's version seems more "top of the line," doesn't it?  

But who made these?  They are definitely of Chinese workmanship, so that seems to eliminate the Miriam Haskell atelier, unless they were commissioned by her.  I still wonder if they were Camel Bell items, or if they were the inspiration for similar Haskell designs assembled with U.S.-manufactured findings. 

Puzzling Evidence - Gu Yi Zhai Cang Mark 古藝齋藏 and the Peking Jewelry Company

The  "Gu Yi Zhai Cang" mark appears often on small pieces of Chinese cloisonne and champleve.

Various discussions at the Asian Arts Forum indicated that the mark was used from the 1950s onward.  This workshop was evidently also responsible for sets of pendants, cups, small boxes from the Peking Jewelry Company.

We'll start with an intact boxed set on offer from Hawaiian eBay vendor 974.1, which displays the connection between the GuYiZhaiCang mark and Peking Jewelry.  The clever and attractive design displays a distinctive feature of this type of champleve: characters that seem to be drawn from classic Chinese novels or operas, as well as famous landscape scenes such as the Summer Palace.

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eBay vendor les33 discovered a stash of unsold boxed sets of pendants that, from a label appearing on one of the pieces, appear to be old stock from a Korvette department store.  This store chain went out of business in 1980.

eBay vendor avid4, of David Sterner Antiques, has on offer an intact set of small bird and flower vase pendants:

eBay vendor mit125 also has a nice set of vase pendants on offer:

California business records indicate a Peking Jewelry Co., Ltd., was listed with a San Francisco address between August and October of 1978, when it apparently went defunct.  The twenty-year U.S. embargo on Chinese imports ended in 1971.

A small pair of cloisonne (hand-wired, not stamped champleve) boxes with the GuYiZhaiCang seal:

eBay vendor jnacy states that this set of pendants was purchased in Beijing over 35 years ago: 

 The previous owner of this set stated that it was found in a San Francisco warehouse, dated 1958:

A small snuff bottle done in cloisonne, reportedly purchased in San Francisco in the 1970s:

Observe the JingFa clouds and flower bud.

I have a number of other photos of pieces with either the Gu mark or Peking Jewelry boxed sets. If anyone has a piece for which they'd like to compare notes, just add a comment.  Evidence so far seems to indicate that these are products made from the 1950s through the 1970s. 

UPDATE: In a prior post about the difference between champleve and cloisonne, mention is made in a comment in the Chinese website blog www.jtlzj.net regarding the origin of machine-made enamel works in 1958. [Those who, like me, are illiterate in Chinese will find the Google translate button to be useful].  Machine-made works are described under item 8 in the list of variants of enamel types that get lumped into the general category "cloisonne."  This 1958 date could be the origin date for the champleve products described in the above post?