Emerald Green Jade Carvings, Two Chinese Hard Stone Plates, 1911

This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 239 and 241 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: emerald green jade carvings. Plate 239: Vase, in emerald green jade splashed with white, supported by two figures carved in openwork. The figures are the "Twin Genii of Union and Harmony," known as the Ho Ho Erh Hsien, one bearing a lotus flower and leaves, the other a round box or ting; they stand upon rocks. A cover with a knob completes the piece. The book gives it to the Kien-lung period and records height 9 inches (23 cm); width 6 inches (15 cm). Plate 241: Sacrificial cup and cover, in fine green jade, mottled with white and a few spots of black. Of reversed helmet shape, having a wide annulation between the neck and the base; decorated with dragons (chih-lung) carved in openwork and high relief, whose forked tails spread over the sides. The form is referred to the "Book of Rites.". The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 8 inches (20.3 cm); width 6 1/4 inches (15.8 cm). In the collection of H. S. Whitaker, Esq.

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, by Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker, was published in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911 in two volumes with two hundred and fifty four color plates, and these sheets are among them, from Volume II. 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 book appeared at the height of the Edwardian passion for Chinese porcelain, when English and American collections were being formed at speed and a dealer's catalog could shape taste. R. L. Hobson of the British Museum attacked Gorer's attributions in print when the work appeared, and later scholarship has revised many attributions of this kind, which is part of what makes the volumes interesting to read now.

It hangs well in a bedroom or a small sitting room where a large picture would overwhelm the wall, and it rewards being hung at eye level where the detail can be read. 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. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.