Black Goddess Kuan with Cornucopia, Ming Figure, Antique Color Plate, 1911

An original color plate of 1911 from Gorer and Blacker's book of Chinese ceramic art, this sheet is given over to a figure of the goddess Kuan, enameled black, on a tabaret stand with ormolu mount. The flesh is pure black enamel with red lips, gilt ornaments and red coral bracelets, and she carries a green cornucopia with a gilt band. Her short three-flounced skirt is striped in green, blue, yellow, aubergine and white, and the stand top is painted with a famille verte landscape. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Ming period, very rare, and record it in the collection of S. E. Kennedy, Esq.; height 16 inches (41 cm), width 9 3/4 inches (25 cm).

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones appeared in 1911 under the imprint of Bernard Quaritch, 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, London. Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker illustrated two hundred and fifty four pieces across two volumes, every one of them given a full page color plate printed from a photograph. Volume I, from which this sheet comes, runs from Plate 1 to Plate 135. 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.

The plates were printed in color from photographs of the pieces, so the black and green grounds, the iron red and the white of the porcelain are recorded directly rather than drawn by an artist. A plate from this book reads as a record of an object rather than as a decorative picture of one.

Even age toning. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete. One larger brown mark.

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