Around 1880 Namikawa Yasuyuki met Gottfried Wagener, one of many foreign specialists being employed in Japan, and they worked together to produce the fine mirror-black enamel ground seen on this vase. These and further advances in enamel technology enabled Namikawa to produce enamelled wares that no longer depended on large numbers of wires to prevent the enamels from flowing when fired and large expanses of clear enamel now became integral to the work of many cloisonné artists. However, Namikawa continued to employ fine wire cloisonné as part of the decoration of many of his objects.