Tracing a golden legacy

Chinese artisans carry forward handcrafted cloisonne's tradition and innovation, giving new mettle to old metal with designs that shine across time. Cloisonne, or jingtailan in Chinese, is the technique of creating designs on metal with colored-glass paste, or enamel, that fills in spaces among copper or bronze wiring that’s bent or hammered into patterns.

The technique was introduced to China in the late 13th century. It’s believed that cloisonne reached its peak and was given its present Chinese name during the reign of Emperor Jingtai in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Lan means blue in Chinese, and jingtailan goods were typically infused with a special dark blue enamel as the base color.