Oriental Cloisonne is such a fascinating topic. There are many out-of-print books on this subject, most valued at several times their original price; due to the prized information they contain. 

I am a humble collector and seller of cloisonne; and have read everything I could about this topic. I have bought and sold hundreds of pieces, and have my own very small collection; now favoring the more unusual Chinese and Japanese pieces.

CHINESE RUYIE BORDER

JAPANESE ORANGE PEEL ENAMEL

CHINESE SMOOTH TURQUOISE ENAMEL

First: the biggest challenge knowing which Asian country a piece was produced in, is the fact that Japan came late in the production of cloisonne, around 1870, and what they initially exported was a close copy of the popular Chinese Export cloisonne items of that era. The same thing happened with Asian export porcelain. During the Meiji period of 1867 to 1912, when Japan finally completely opened her borders for trade. Eventually, several master cloisonne craftsmen emerged in Japan, with highly skilled and unique renditions and designs.

JAPANESE 3 TOED CLOISONNE DRAGON AND CHINESE 5 TOED CLOISONNE DRAGON

During the early years of 1900-1920, thousands of Japanese cloisonne items were also made, with plain enamels and motifs, in bulk, by the studio workshop employees. These are usually the ones mistaken for Chinese. Since China, as well, has had a huge output of ordinary lackluster cloisonne enamel pieces. The CHU book stated that in China, many villages were in the cloisonne production business;  were a whole family would be involved, each  member taking on various aspect of this work. 

JAPANESE KIDNEY CLOISON, REDDISH BROWN CIRCLE BORDER, AND GEOMETRIC PANELS

When looking for differences between Chinese and Japanese cloisonne; often it  is not the motifs themselves but the border and rim decorations or the plain enamel finish inside or underside the item that tells the tale. For instance, many Chinese boxes and vases are finished with a bright and smooth  turquoise blue interior. Japanese boxes and vases have an orange peel enamel texture and display dark green, yellow, grey or navy blue enamel.

The vast majority of the older Chinese pieces have a ruyi border, a colorful scalloped design about 1 inch in width. Japanese pieces never have a ruyie border, instead they often have a thin circular plain reddish brown, green or blue circle chain decoration at the rims.

Japanese cloisonne has a greater variety of types of cloisonne; such as ginbari with the bright translucent enamels; akasuke the red clear enamel applied to a textured metal base; sometimes called goldstone because of the brilliant added copper filings. There is totai  cloisonne applied to a ceramic body, this is seen with the brown treebark type of finish and the Kyoto studio colorful earthenware. The more recent Japanese cloisonne pieces are designed with wireless cloisonne, with smooth enamel designs fired without the cloisons. The ANDO company are masters at this type of decoration, where the motifs are usually scenic or floral.

Another big difference is the finial on the cloisonne lids: Japanese pieces often have a brass chrysantemum of other floral type of finial; Chinese items may have a brass or bronze foo dog, or a knob that is also covered with cloisonne or a plain brass pointy finial.

Signatures or marks can be very helpfull of course. The older Chinese 1900 pieces are marked CHINA, the later pieces made during the 1920-30's are marked MADE IN CHINA, then the mid-20th century and later items had paper labels and are not marked at all.

The Chinese cloisonne output of the 1950-1970 period varied a lot from the previous traditional decorations. Suddenly we see very modern types of designs, with unusual geometric renditions. I have seen these attributed to France, Japan even Hungary; since there is no mark and the original label is gone.

The very early Japanese pieces either had a symbol of the maker on the base or they were not marked at all. During the 20th century, when cloisonne production in Japan was mainly done by a few cloisonne workshops such as: INABA, ANDO, TAMURA, and SATO; pieces were impressed MADE IN JAPAN with the company's name and/or logo on the base metal rim. Today, only ANDO remains, producing their famous wireless cloisonne items, one of their lines is called TUTANKA with a red and gold egyptian motif label.

One ironic instance of misleading signature marks are very old cloisonne pieces with a large 2 character Chinese cloisonne mark on the base that reads 'The Great Ming' , those pieces are Japanese and have been documented in several reference books as such.

Similarities greatly outweigh differences; motifs of birds, butterflies, flowers abound in both. As well as mythological figures, buddhist symbols etc. Dragons are often used, and these usually have basic differences; where as Chinese dragons have 5 claws and Japanese have 2, 3 or 4.

As to why this should matter; because of the difference in values. Chinese cloisonne items abound compared to Japanese pieces and values reflect this. I get very uncomfortable when I see a nice recent Chinese vase described as antique Japanese and there are bids for hundreds of dollars.

ON the other hand I have noticed recently that values are changing. Some rare Chinese antique pieces are fetching better prices than the Japanese items.

If you are new at evaluating the differences between Japanese and Chinese cloisonne, give it time. Ebay can be a great tool to practice your knowledge, once you get a general idea of what is from China and what is from Japan, you should eventually be able to tell at a glance.

Join us at our CLOISONNE CLOISONNE CLOISONNE group; for more answers to your questions. If you are trying to identify a piece before listing it; go ahead and email me some photos. I am always happy to help.

I am planning several more guides on this topic since there has been such interest. Thank you for making this worthwhile.

If you found this quide helpful and informative, please give your feedback. This makes the guide more accessible on the 'cloisonne' search pages.