Beadiste

Monday, October 20, 2014

Puzzling Evidence – Cloisonné vs Champlevé in Chinese Beads

After I published a post containing some Deco-era Chinese beads, a correspondent questioned my analysis of the large disc beads with a dragon and phoenix on opposite sides.

When I had examined these beads with a loupe, it appeared to me that they had an identical pattern that differed from bead to bead only in enamel colors. This exact duplication can only be achieved with a machine; skilled cloisonné wire artists can make copies of a design with remarkable precision, but not to the level achieved by machine stamping. I considered that these identical dragon beads could be thus classified as champlevé rather than cloisonné. However, I had passed my belt of dragon and phoenix beads on to another collector, so was unable to re-examine the beads. Therefore, when this 1930s Blumenthal brooch appeared, I purchased it to take another look at this style of bead.

For those who question the lack of patina on this bead, the dragon side was afflicted with some verdigris, which I removed, and in so doing re-polished the underlying copper so it is once again bright. Sequence: a horsehair brush, VerdiChem, Nevr-Dull, Sunshine Cloth, Renaissance Wax

The word “cloisonné,” when used for enamel decoration, can be understood in two ways:

1) A generalized colloquial term for enamel decoration with different colors applied within separate cells of metal.

2) A specific enamel technique where the separate cells for different colors are formed by thin wires.

“Champlevé” refers to the enameling process where the separate cells for the different colors are formed by carving, chemical etching, casting, or die stamping. It is not the same technique as cloisonné, in which the cells are formed by wires, although it often gets called “cloisonné” in the general catch-all use of the term.

A Google Image search for “champlevé” produces rich results.

Champlevé without the background enamel filled in resembles openwork cloisonné.

Openwork wire cloisonné on left, two champlevé pieces on right. Note how the champlevé dragons’ scales look somewhat hexagonal, as if they’d been chiseled, whereas the cloisonné dragon’s scales are semicircular wires. Also compare the openwork cloisonne bead with the openwork champleve bead in the photo at the top of this post.

A Patek Phillipe website about cloisonné watch faces tacitly notes in the quote below how wired cloisonné designs cannot be exactly replicated, thus are “individual works of art.” This is in distinction to champlevé, where the design can indeed be replicated with great exactness and detail, thanks to machines.

“Cloisonné presents the enameller not only with the challenge of placing the enamel in the wire cells (done traditionally with a goose quill pen) but also with the hurdle of bending the wire for the cells by hand –a step which ensures that cloisonné watches even in the same series are all individual works of art.”

Machinery and modern industrial processes apply splendidly to champlevé, and can turn out products by the million. Epoxy “soft” enamels are commonly used as well as glass enamels. In the following websites and videos, notice not only the massive machinery, but also the amount of human intervention required, from stomping foot pedals and waving blow torches around, to precision carving, enamel application, polishing and electroplating. Try to get past the alarming musical accompaniments.

This French enamel factory website give some idea of what it takes to create the glass enamel powders used in champleve (don't be a coward, click on the video play button)

The process by which the William Spear Design company produces complex enameled champleve pins:

Die-struck champlevé with glass enamel (referred to in the video as “colored sand”)

The many steps involved in coloring with epoxy enamel

A Chinese factory demonstrates a sequence of die design,stamping, enameling and finishing

When it comes to champlevé beads, button manufacturers seem to have jumped onto the bus first, most likely due to greater consumer demand and the comparative ease of replicating matched sets of small objects.

Champlevé beads seem to appear most often in disk shapes, especially larger pieces suitable for pendants, possibly because it’s easier for machines to stamp out two slightly concave pieces that can then be soldered together. A flatter surface also makes it easier for an artist to compose a design without worrying about wrapping it around a sphere and compensating for spherical distortion.

Assorted disk beads used as pendants, probably from the 1970s-80s. The bat making a nighttime raid on some peaches is my favorite.

Champleve disk beads with a center cloisonne bead, probably c1970s.

A sample of contemporary champleve beads available from Ted Henning

Chinese champleve dragon and phoenix box in the style of "golden ground" cloisonne

This fascinating Chinese website about cloisonne states that machine-stamped champleve manufacture was started in 1958. This picture and its text description is at number 8 in the list of types of enamel work:

http://www.jtlzj.net/jingtailanjieshao/784.html

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Puzzling Evidence - Japanese Inaba Cloisonne Buttons

eBay vendor lynne1984 offered a rare set of Inaba buttons demonstrating the cloisonne process:

Vendor states: "from the Inaba Manufacturing Store in Kyoto Japan, which my parents probably visited while stationed in Japan - late 1940's early 50's. Original - has been sitting in a drawer for the past 35+ years. Some of the pieces look to have been lost of eroded with time and travel."

eBay vendor wondollar has a set on offer that appear to be Inaba buttons as well:

And I found one in my collection:

Note the tiny circles surrounding the rims - a very typical Japanese motif.

The July 2004 issue of the National Button Society's Bulletin has a nice article, "Enamels of the Modern Era" by Bruce Beck. You can purchase a copy from the address in this PDF.

One of Beck's photo illustrations, based upon the above evidence, seems to be mistakenly attributed as Chinese, when it should be Japanese.

In later decades after World War II the Inaba Company seems to have shifted to stamped and enameled designs, rather than those featuring hand-applied wires. This set is still accompanied by its original purchase bag:

More examples of Inaba buttons:

This blogger has posted an interesting series of photos he took in 1976 Japan, including several of the Inaba factory and showroom, two of which are quoted below:

And as a final bit of puzzling evidence, an exquisite set of Japanese chrysanthemum buttons of unknown date and atelier (anyone with an opinion, please feel free to chime in).

"FIVE EXTREMELY FINE JAPANESE CLOISONNE SILVER BUTTONS. Large size set decorated with chrysanthemums on blue ground, silver backs with wire loop shank. 1 3/8. (Three missing shanks) "

UPDATE: eBay vendor patiquespottery2 had another example of an Inaba cloisonne button:

Ebay vendor patiquespottery2

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Puzzling Evidence – Japanese Cloisonné Beads, Ojime-style Beads In Necklaces

A few months ago a small handful of what are likely antique Japanese cloisonné beads was offered by U.K. eBay seller worth1010:

Japanese 15mm beads on left, contrasted with more recent 15mm Chinese cloisonne beads on right

Close-up pictures make these beads appear the size of golf balls. The Chinese goldfish bead from the previous picture is shown atop a U.S. dime coin in an attempt to provide some sense of proportion.

Over the years at the beadcollector.net forum various other Japanese cloisonné beads have been discussed, including a set owned by Stefany Tomalin that appear to be similar to those in the eBay sale.

Larger beads are 18-20mm, smaller are 12mm. Stefany's beads appear to have a better polish.

Beadcollector.net forum discussion of these beads.

Striped bead at top, second from left, is cloisonne. Beadcollector.net forum discussion here.

Beadcollector.net discussion of these beads

Beadcollector.net forum discussion

Gregory Irvine, in his book Japanese Cloisonné Enamels (V&A publishing, copyright 2011) shows an illustration on page 18 of an early enamel inro, ojime, and netsuke set dated to 1800-50, in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

A similar ojime appears in this set from an online auction:

Fredric T. Schneider in The Art of Japanese Cloisonné enamel: History, Techniques and Artists, 1600 to the Present (McFarland & Company, Inc., copyright 2010) discusses the use of low-fired enamels that in Japanese are termed doro shippo, used from the 1830s to 1870s:

“In comparison to later work, these doro shippo pieces user lower fired enamels…with a more limited opaque palette, generally of dull and subdued colors…often emphasizing deep green, and incapable of polishing to a hard, mirror-like surface. … Because the pieces were fired at a relatively low temperature and the enamels did not melt well, they usually emerged from the kiln with a wavy enamel surface and severe pitting, and thus often required grinding after each of the many firings needed to complete a piece. … The enamels did not adhere well to the metal substrate and had a coefficient of expansion that tended to leave cracks when fired; therefore, closely-spaced wires were required over the entire surface to hold the enamels properly in place and prevent cracking even when the design did not warrant them.”

Most interestingly with regard to our subject, Schneider goes on to relate:

“By the mid-1860s … Japanese wirework was quite fine and the enamels, though dull and emphasizing a dark green ground, were well placed in the cells rather than spilling over into adjacent areas – thus a very high level of skill had already been achieved before the 1868 end of the Edo era and the absorption of Western technical influence. Three items whose quality exemplifies the precision and workmanship of this period were purchased at the Paris 1867 exposition by the South Kensington Museum, predecessor to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The three also exemplify the prevailing cloisonné enamel decorative style of the period – minute, somewhat abstract flower patterns and textile brocades done in small cells of purple, red, yellow, white, and blue on a dark green ground. … In their forms, one a sake ewer, another a cylindrical three-tier nested food box, and the third a string of ten ojime beads, all traditional Japanese items suitable for sale in the domestic market…”

I wonder if the string of ten ojime resembles the other Japanese beads found in in the U.K. by Stefany Tomalin and worth1010 on eBay? The Victoria & Albert museum website lists their accession number, but states they're in storage and provides no picture. [Months later - I paid the V&A their fee to photograph these beads, the picture is now visible at the link. They are similar to the beads in Stefany's necklace shown above.]

In color plate Fig.8 he illustrates netsuke and ojime with opaque enamels dated to the 19^th-early 20^th centuries, similar to the set quoted from Irvine's book above.

A further reference to cloisonné beads is on page 189:

“An early twentieth century Ando Japanese-language flier, circa 1904, advertised rings, bracelets, hairpins, hair ornaments, combs, hatpins, cuff links, buttons, buckles, pin, and beads, made to the customer’s design, so there must have been demand in the domestic market and/or from retailers for resale to foreigners, although few such pieces marked Ando survive.”

For those interested, a quick flyover of Japanese cloisonne is provided by the Victoria & Albert Museum.

UPDATE: Some more examples of Japanese beads, plus a link to the Internet Archive for The Industries of Japan: Together with an Account of its Agriculture, Forestry, Arts and Commerce, from Travels and Researches Undertaking at the Cost of the Prussian Government, by Johann Justus Rein, published in New York by A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1889. Pages 492 onward contain a rare detailed account of the Japanese cloisonne manufacturing technique.

Ojime-style beads strung on inro cord, possibly as a belt or necklace. Intricate beads incorporated into a necklace with gold chain and red jade pendant (back of pendent view; front features a squirrel and peaches)

UPDATE: U.K. eBay vendor buckinghamshire_antiques discovered two Japanese cloisonne plates that seem to be excellent illustrations of the 1870s style described above in the quote from Fredric Schneider.
Notice the small clouds forming a background pattern on the morning glory plate that appear to be identical, in both shape and arrangement, to the pink clouds on the turquoise ojime pictured above.

UPDATE: More stunning examples of cloisonne ojime from the collection of Frederick Chavez can be found at the beadcollector.net forum in two posts here. Click through and view these, they are not to be missed!

UPDATE: ParadeAntiquesBlog has a set of 6 pictures of a "c1860 Kaji Tsunekichi Style Japanese Cloisonne Vase." Note the arrangement of the little cloud motifs (between the two shiny reflections).

Be sure to view the other 5 pictures!

UPDATE: Another beadcollector.net thread, comparing doro shippo and 1868 Meiji cloisonne beads, with fabulous examples from the collection of Frederick Chavez.

UPDATE: Beads: The Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers accepted the article I wrote (with extensive assistance from Fredric Schneider) about the development of Japanese cloisonne beads.

https://www.beadresearch.org/beads-archives-beads-29-2017/