We visited a Cloisonné factory just minutes away from the Great Wall. An impressive manual process to create these beautiful vases. This is what they look like after the fourth processing step, e.g., enamel firing. Cloisonné, whose history can date back to over 500 years ago, is a well-known traditional enamelware. It is actually called the "Blue of Jingtai" as blue is the dominant color adopted for enameling and cloisonné became prevalent during the reign of Jingtai (1450-1456) in the Ming dynasty.
The production steps for Cloisonné-making are: base-hammering, filigree soldering, enamel filling, enamel firing, polishing, and gilding. Here you see a worker at the first production step: cutting the copper and hammering the base structures.
Picture details: Exposure 1/30s, aperture 4.5, focal length 44mm, ISO 400, no flash, no tripod.
The entire China trip portfolio can be accessed through the ?China Trip 2004? link under ?Portfolio? at the top of this page are through http://www.usefilm.com/browse.php?portfolio_id=11979.
This product was not entirely finished yet, Larry. They actually do many filing/firing iterations until the enamel is thicker then the filigree. At that point, a multi-stage grinding and polishing process starts to create the smooth and shiny surface.
I guess this one was the last of the China photos (unless I scrub them one more time and find something worthy showing here).
0 
