Bodhidharma, Mounted Frenchman and Kou Loung, Three Figures, Plate 1911

This is Plate 94 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a group of three figures: Bodhidharma standing on a reed, a mounted Frenchman in Louis XIV costume, and Kou Loung seated on rocks. Bodhidharma, in yellow, crosses the waves on a green reed carrying a lotus leaf sunshade with a single shoe. The rider wears a green coat, yellow breeches and carries a sword and powder horn, and Kou Loung, god of the soil and riches, holds a treasure bag and a miner's hammer. Gorer and Blacker describe the group as late Ming or early Kang-he period and record it in the collection of Henry Hirsch; heights 8 1/4 inches (21 cm), 9 1/4 inches (24 cm) and 7 inches (18 cm), widths 4 inches (10 cm), 6 inches (15 cm) and 5 5/8 inches (14 cm).

The plate belongs to Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, Bernard Quaritch, 1911, the book in which the dealer Edgar Gorer and the writer J. F. Blacker illustrated and described two hundred and fifty four pieces of Chinese ceramic and glyptic art. The edition was limited to one thousand numbered copies in two large quarto volumes, with the color plates protected by tissue guards. 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 book records the Edwardian taste for Chinese porcelain, when the famille noire and famille verte wares that collectors associate with the Kangxi period were among the most sought after. R. L. Hobson of the British Museum criticized the book, and later scholarship has revised many attributions of this kind; the periods given in this listing are the authors' own, as printed in 1911.

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.