Japanese Cloisonné Chrysanthemum & Butterfly Vase

Fine Art Cloisonné — Deep Red Glaze Chrysanthemum and Butterfly Cloisonné Vase, with Wood Stand and Original Wooden Box

This is a decidedly elegant Japanese fine art cloisonné vase. The form takes the slender proportion often seen in traditional Japanese flower vessels: the mouth flares slightly outward, the shoulder is soft and full, and the body tapers gradually toward the base. At roughly 15.5 cm it is a very easy size to display, never so large as to limit where it can be placed. What is truly impressive is the deep red cloisonné ground. In the photographs the ground color sits somewhere between wine red, carmine and deep ruby. When light falls across the body the red takes on a flowing sense of depth and shade, rather than the flat blocks of color common to modern mass-produced pieces. Seen up close, a fine and regular texture in the body beneath can be glimpsed through the relatively translucent red enamel. The piece therefore has an interesting quality: from a distance a sumptuous red, up close a finely wrought sense of craftsmanship.