Elkington and Company of Birmingham were among the few to experiment with new styles and methods in the latter part of the 19th century, adding an interesting group of champlevé and cloisonné wares to their range. Their successful techniques, borrowed from Oriental methods, coincided with the rise of interest in Japanese decoration associated with the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s and 1880s. However they modified traditional techniques in the light of new industry developments, in part sponsored by themselves. The body of this vase is electroformed copper, with applied, imitation, "cloisonné" enamel. The enamelled areas are not made by the tradiditional wire cloisons method, but the enamelld boundaries were formed as part of the electroforming proceed, creating cells in which enamel was applied by hand before firing, rather resembling the champlevé method.