Recently, the Buddhist treasure "Tian Long Ba Bu" (literally translated as The Eight Steps of the Heavenly Dragon), an enamel handicraft which has been lost for more than 200 years, was publicly introduced at the Baigongfang in Beijing for the first time.
As the greatest among the top four Beijing handicrafts, the enamel has its origin in the Yuan Dynasty and reached its peak during the rein of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. Enamel handicrafts had always been made by the imperial workshop specially for the enjoyment of palace nobility. Since the rein of Emperor Jiaqing 200 years ago, the process of casting enamel gradually declined and eventually became lost, as a result of the complexity of the technique and the low yield rate.
After nearly ten thousand times of repeated firing and tests for two years, two Chinese handicraft experts, Zhang Tonglu and Mi Zhenxiong, finally developed and rescued the technique for casting enamel. The Buddhist treasure "Tian Long Ba Bu" was the first cast enamel handicraft to be produced by a technique lost for 200 years ago.
With a 48-centimeter height and 18-centimeter diameter, each of the Buddhist treasure "Tian Long Ba Bu" consists of four parts, the base, the "Tian Long Ba Bu", the auspicious cloud design and the eight treasures. They were completely handmade through 38 complex processes and only 200 limited sets were issued in the world.
(Chinanews.cn January 14, 2005)
