景泰蓝 (Jǐngtàilán)
Jingtailan (景泰蓝 — 'Jingtai blue') is Beijing's defining luxury craft — a metalwork technique combining copper or bronze base forming, fine copper wire (sihua — silk wire) bending to create cloisons (cells), enamel paste filling, repeated firing, and gold-plating of the wire surfaces. The technique reached its artistic peak during the Jingtai era of the Ming Dynasty (1450–1457 CE) — giving it its name. The sihua wire-bending is the most technically demanding element: fine copper wire cut and bent by hand into the curves and angles of the design, then soldered to the base — producing the cellular structure that holds each color of enamel separately. A complex Jingtailan vase may have 30,000+ individual wire cells, each bent to a specific curve from the design's overall composition.
Risk level: Endangered · Within China's national ICH system; Beijing cloisonné on national ICH list
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