Presentation vase decorated with birds and flowers, one of a pair

Japan

1890s

Cloisonné enamel, gold, silver, and copper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Versions of cloisonné enamel (metal objects decorated with thin gold or silver strips) have been known in the West for about two millennia but did not become popular in Japan until the 1860s. By the 1880s, Japanese enamels were known throughout the world for their astounding quality, and at the beginning of the 1900s they would outshine everything that had been previously achieved in this medium. This pair of presentation vases rank among the tallest ever made. The railroad magnate James J. Hill (1838–1916) purchased them in Chicago in 1906 for his New York apartment, and after his death they were displayed for more than 100 years a