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Antique
hunters and porcelain devotees are always on the lookout for
unusual and beautiful pieces, especially from China. The
best examples of Chinese vases can date back centuries, some
fetching millions of dollars at auction. A
more recent addition (by Chinese standards, at least) to the
antique hunter's prize list is pieces created using Canton
enamel, a technique that dates back to the late seventeenth
century. However,
unlike the many other types of Chinese earthenware,
porcelain, and other enamel decorated pieces, Canton enamel
may actually owe its origin to foreign sources.
Canton
enamel is named for the city where it was first
manufactured. Canton
is located in southern China in the province of Guandong. While
the Chinese had used enamels to paint artistic scenes on
stoneware for centuries, Canton enamel was a new technique
whereby painted enamels were painted onto the whole surface
of copper, ceramics, and other earthenware pieces. The technique was developed in Limoges, France in the
seventeenth century. It
has been reported that this technique was brought to China
in the late seventeenth century by French missionaries. The
earliest examples of Canton enamel date back to
approximately 1740.
Canton
enamel was applied to a wide variety of different pieces. The
pieces which have become perhaps the most synonymous with
the words "Canton enamel" are metals, which have
been painted with enamels in a variety of different scenes. These
pieces often depicted court life in China, being decorated
with elaborate floral borders. The
metal most often used in the earliest pieces is copper,
which was first shaped into vases, plates, cups, and tea
sets. Once the
artwork was completed, the pieces were heated to bond it
firmly to the surface, creating a colorful piece that exudes
color and liveliness. As
the industry developed and demand increased for pieces made
with the Canton enamel process, manufacturers began working
with many different materials.
Canton
enamel artwork could soon be found on porcelain and other
stoneware and in fact, this technique started being used in
other Chinese cities and districts. Porcelain tea sets made during the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries are considered real art works. Chinese enamels are generally divided into classifications
based on the color palettes used in each piece.
Some examples include famille verte (green colors),
wucai (bright colors), and fencai (pale colors). Canton
enamel pieces are generally created with famille rose
(family of red) colors, which are opaque and filmy.
Typically, these include red, peach, yellow, and
opaque white. The opaque color scheme tends to give Canton enamel an
ethereal quality not seen in other pieces from China, many
of which have bright, bold colors.
Canton
enamel pieces produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries are highly prized.
These include tea sets, cups, and plates while the
pieces created in the twentieth century lean more toward a
commercial appearance although they too are beautiful
decorative and functional ash trays, tea sets, and so on.
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