Aubergine Ground Vases and Bottles, Two Kang-he Color Plates, 1911

This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 190 and 192 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: aubergine ground vases and bottles. Plate 190: Vase, fusiform, spindle-shaped. A border at the rim of shark-skin decorated with red chih-lung, followed by a yellow fillet and a border of green ju-i heads; the body is covered with a remarkable ground of purplish aubergine scrolls, sometimes termed rolling waves or filigranes, with semi-flowers surmounting red ju-i heads and red jewels. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 17 7/8 inches (45.4 cm); diameter 5 1/8 inches (13 cm). From the collection formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., D.L. Plate 192: Pair of bottles. An aubergine ground divided by a band of rouge de fer on the shoulder with green foliage in conventional form and white lotus; hanging from these flowers by green fillets are four vases with their stands of archaic form, separated by three wavy lines in black. The book gives it to the Early Kang-he period and records height 12 inches (30.5 cm); diameter 6 inches (15.3 cm).

The plates belong to Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, issued in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, a work in two volumes whose two hundred and fifty four color plates were printed to the highest standard the period could reach. The plates are color collotypes, a photographic process that reproduces continuous tone without a visible dot screen, which is why the glazes keep their depth on paper.

Edgar Gorer was one of the most visible dealers in Chinese art of his generation. He traded as S. Gorer and Son at 170 New Bond Street with a branch at 500 Fifth Avenue in New York, dealt chiefly in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong porcelain, and sold to Sir William Lever. He died on 7 May 1915 when the Lusitania was torpedoed, and his body was never recovered.

Collectors of Chinese ceramics, of early color printing and of Edwardian book illustration all look for these plates, and they work equally well in an interior scheme as in a collection. The two sheets are the same size and were printed by the same hand, so they hang as one group.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.

Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of one of the two sheets. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.