Blue and White Hawthorn Ginger Jars, Two Kang-he Color Plates, 1911

This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 136 and 137 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: blue and white prunus ginger jars. Plate 136: Ovoid vases, or ginger-jars, with dome covers, a pair. Blue and white hawthorn decoration; cobalt blue under the glaze finely marbled, agatise, with white stems and flowers of the prunus reserved, no leaves; crenellated border on the shoulder; dome covers decorated to match. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 10 1/4 inches (26 cm); diameter 8 3/8 inches (21.3 cm). From the collection formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., D.L. Plate 137: Three oviform vases and covers, or ginger-jars. Ground of the finest and most brilliant cobalt, marbled and hatched with lines of darker blue forming the cracked-ice pattern, with prunus reserved in white under a clear transparent glaze; the base of the jars plain white. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 10 1/4 inches (26 cm); diameter 8 1/2 inches (21.5 cm). In the collection of J. B. Lee, Esq.

The sheets come from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, the two volume work by the London dealer Edgar Gorer and the writer J. F. Blacker, published by Bernard Quaritch of 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, in 1911 in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. 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.

What gives these plates their standing is the quality of the collections they record. Pieces illustrated here passed through the great Edwardian cabinets, and several are now in museums, so the book is a photographic record of where this material sat a century ago.

Hung as a group with other plates from the same work, it builds into a decorative scheme with a common palette and a common hand. 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 both sheets. Foxing over much of the margin of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of both sheets. Shallow nicks along an edge of one of the two sheets.