Beijing Enamel Factory Pattern Booklets 1960 and 1975

A discerning collector of Chinese cloisonne recently acquired two rare treasures – pattern booklets published by the Beijing Enamel Factory in 1960 and 1975.  Permission was granted to post short videos and pictures here.

The Beijing Enamel Factory was organized in 1956, following some prior years as an experimental workshop that gathered together surviving cloisonne artists and dedicated young art students determined to revive cloisonne as a Chinese art form. 

The 1960 booklet reflects their efforts to revitalize cloisonne, showing designs based upon traditional lucky symbols, scholar’s objects, and classic Mustard Seed Garden-style naturalistic depictions of flowers and birds instead of the repetitive stereotyped designs of the 1930s-40s. The booklet designs can be matched to the better works of the early 20^th century, when the old masters recruited by the experimental factory had learned their trade. 

Fifteen years later, in 1975, designs had changed dramatically to less birds-and-flowers and instead to original compositions based upon current events and archaic motifs such as the Taotie mask, accompanied by elaborate frieze and background diaper motifs, and worked upon larger and more sculptural bases.

These booklets seem invaluable for dating the production decades of post-1950 Chinese cloisonne.

[NOTE: Clicking on any photo will open it for an enlarged view. An enlarged view can also then be opened in a new tab for even greater magnification.]

1960 Booklet

1975 Booklet

https://www.beadiste.com/2015/02/puzzling-evidence-red-crowned-crane-in.html

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5409955

https://www.amchpr.com/oct-14-2024-beijingenamelfactory.html

Puzzling Evidence: The End of the Miriam Haskell Mystery?

 A discussion at Beadcollector.net early in 2013 started me on my exploration of Chinese cloisonne beads in Western costume jewelry, featuring pictures of a necklace found on Etsy and attributed to Miriam Haskell.  In the dozen years since, harvesting pictures and purchasing examples has led to a sorting of designs into groups as described in previous posts.  This is hopefully the last post I plan to do on this “Miriam Haskell Mystery,” as the necklaces and bracelets in this design suite seem likely to me to be post-World War II and the last incidence of actual Chinese-manufactured beads showing up in fashion jewelry until the 1970s, when the 20-year U.S. embargo on Chinese imports was lifted.

I could be entirely wrong on that dating guess, of course, but the array of findings and beads and overall style is quite different from what are likely pre-War late 1930s-pre-1941 designs.  This seems to me consistent with the post-1945 revival of the Rhode Island jewelry factories once their machines were re-tooled from wartime munitions production. Critical as well was the rage for Dior’s 1947 “New Look” and coordinating opulent jewelry heavy with glass and rhinestone components from Maison Gripoix and Swarovski.

“A new look required updated jewelry to accessorize these more feminine styles. Out with the bulky Retro jewelry of the ‘40s and in with beautifully crafted floral designs and other ladylike motifs such as bows.”

https://www.antiquetrader.com/collectibles/christian-dior-jewelry

“Oriental” charm jewelry of the 1950s is exemplified by Eugene Bertolli’s “Chinese Lanterns” and “Shangri-la” designs for the Napier Company – heavy, well-constructed bracelets composed of sculptural plated castings and chains, the only imported Asian components being lampwork glass beads from Japan.

https://napierbook.com/product/chunky-vintage-napier-shangri-la-charm-bracelet/

The designs in this post center around a distinctive double rollo chain with a jeweled box clasp.  The finding and beads used are a more lavish step up from the related bookchain designs described in the previous post, with which they share a number of components and findings.  While there is apparently some doubt among collectors as to whether the bookchain designs were products of the Miriam Haskell workshop, the manner in which they seem to form a sequence with earlier designs as well as the jewelry in this post makes me lean toward their being Haskell product lines. After all, if not Haskell, what evidence is there for another designer to have produced this range of related jewelry with its distinctive quirky assemblage and manipulation of findings (instead of relying upon in-house casting and plating, such as for Coro and Rice-Weiner)?

A marker for this suite of jewelry is the use of a distinctive glass cylinder bead featuring “peppermint cane” stripes or a speckled crumb surface.  Where these beads originated is a mystery – Japan? Venice? Czechoslovakia?  On some compositions a turquoise glass Czech “Egyptian revival” bead stands in for the lampwork glass cylinder, which seems more than a little odd, unless the workshop was simply striving for an overall “exotic” effect in keeping with the “Bakelite” urns, pitchers, and amphorae.

The jewelry examples in the following slides are arranged very roughly in the chronological order of either their online sale or when I discovered the pictures if no sales data was availabled (if you recognize a photo of yours and want attribution, just tell me). It was fun following the internet breadcrumbs to track down the 2014 PBS television show “Market Warriors” to discover that the necklace and earrings set had been purchased by one of the show stars for $420 (he believed it was Chinese), only to achieve a disappointing $125 in the subsequent show audience auction.  These pieces now sell for around a thousand dollars and up.

https://www.youtube.com/live/kyOphjaGxJg

There seems to have been some of the usual collector messing around with the designs, rearranging dangles or adding substitutes according to taste or need for repair.  These pieces, after all, have been passing through various hands for 80 years.

Click on any picture for an enlarged view or open the picture in a new tab for increased magnification.