Chinese Cloisonné Animal - Green snake

Chinese cloisonné animal:

- Chinese animal in cloisonné metal.
- Objects from Chinese crafts.
- Cloisonné is a technique for making enamel objects. This technique is very present in China.
- Our animals are based on metal where patterns are applied by metal strips, directly welded to the base of it.
- The cells are then filled with colored enamel using a syringe. Everything is finally cooked and then sanded.

The manufacture of Chinese cloisonne:

- Step 1: This step consists of working copper, which is the basic material. This base needs to be perfect in terms of uniformity, thickness and weight in order to move to the second stage. This important work is quite lengthy and requires a lot of knowledge.

- Step 2: Then, with a tweezer, bent wires or strips of copper are placed on it: it is the "partitioning" that constitutes the features of the drawing. The copper strips are of a different thickness and width depending on the object to be partitioned. It takes a lot of patience and skill especially when you know that sometimes a hundred strips of copper are needed to draw on a surface of less than 3 x 3cm. The threads and strips adhere to the bottom thanks to an adhesive made from Chinese plant roots. Then the object is heated to 1200 ° C.

- Step 3: Next, pour a mixture of silver, copper and borax powders into the sieve before submitting it to a small fire. An enamel paste of various colors is crimped between the partitions by means of a tool. Since not all dyes have the same melting point, several firings are required and several layers of dyes must be applied to achieve the desired effect.

- Step 4: Finally, the work is polished with a millstone and charcoal. Polishing leads to the leveling of enamel and partitions. The object is then immersed in a solution of gold where an electric current passes. A work is thus obtained in which the brightness of the metal does not give way to that of the enamel.

This craft requires precision, seriousness and patience. The respect of the steps and the quality of the materials are extremely important to obtain perfect and beautiful objects.