Cracked Ice Ginger Jar from the Salting Collection, Kang-he Cobalt, 1911

Plate 138 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of a single ovoid ginger jar with prunus reserved on a hatched cobalt cracked ice ground, Kang-he period, Salting Collection. Ovoid vase, or ginger-jar. Brilliant ground of cobalt blue hatched with lines of deeper blue forming the ground known as cracked or crackled ice; the prunus outlines drawn on the raw clay, the ground presenting varied shades of cobalt in pulsating waves. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 8 3/4 inches (22.2 cm); diameter 8 inches (20.3 cm). In the Salting Collection.

The plate belongs 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.

The volumes were produced as a record of pieces Gorer handled or admired, and the plates were made with unusual care for the period. A century later they survive as some of the best color images of early twentieth century taste in Chinese ceramics and hard stones.

A sheet of this size frames well at about forty by fifty centimeters and suits a study, a hallway or a dining room where its color can be seen close to.

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

Even age toning. All four corners complete.