Antique Color Plate of Two Apple Green Baluster Vases with Mandarins, 1911

This is Plate 118 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a pair of apple-green ground baluster vases with white reserves of mandarin scenes. One reserve shows two kneeling men presenting a vase and a black boot to a seated mandarin by the sea; the companion shows a mandarin under screens held by soldiers reading a petition from a kneeling suitor attended by bearers of gifts. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Kang-he period and record them in the collection of Mrs. Colis P. Huntington; height 11 1/4 inches (29 cm), diameter 5 1/2 inches (14 cm).

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones was issued in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, in two large quarto volumes limited to one thousand numbered copies. Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker wrote the text, which runs in English and French, and the two hundred and fifty four plates were printed in color from photographs of the pieces themselves rather than drawn by hand. This sheet is one of them. The plates are color collotypes, and the book records that it was produced and printed by the Menpes Printing and Engraving Company of London and Watford.

Gorer and Blacker chose the showpieces of the trade: tall black ground vases, green ground beakers, figures and animals, many of them from named private collections in Britain and America. The plates are a record of Western taste in Chinese ceramics in 1911 as much as of the objects themselves.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the top edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the top left corner.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.