Palace vase decorated with fish

Cloisonné is a decorating technique in which thin pieces of wire are soldered onto an object’s metal body. The resulting “compartments” are filled with enamels of different colours, and then fired and smoothed. It is one of the few decorative methods in Chinese art imported from abroad. Objects adorned in the cloisonné technique were especially popular among the emperors and dignitaries of the last Qing dynasty, whose rulers were ethnic Manchus with tastes that often differed from that of the traditional Chinese literati. The large palace vases are adorned with typical flowers and birds genre motifs. Fish are a symbol of abundance in Chinese art, and were thus often used to decorate handicraft objects, which never lacked positive symbolism.