Famille Jaune Bronze Form Baluster Vase with Dragons, Gorer Plate, 1911

Plate 55 of the 1911 book Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original color plate of Chinese porcelain, illustrates a yellow ground baluster vase of archaic bronze form. Two four-clawed dragons, one with aubergine scales and one with green, chase the sacred jewel through clouds around the body, and the shoulder carries the pa kua and yin-yang symbols on a green rice-star ground. Palmettes and sweet flags fill the neck and base, set off by narrow raised bands of white, red and white. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Kang-he period and record it in the collection formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., D.L.; height 12 3/4 inches (33 cm), diameter 8 5/8 inches (22 cm).

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones was issued in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, in two large quarto volumes limited to one thousand numbered copies. Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker wrote the text, which runs in English and French, and the two hundred and fifty four plates were printed in color from photographs of the pieces themselves rather than drawn by hand. This sheet is one of them. 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.

Gorer and Blacker chose the showpieces of the trade: tall black ground vases, green ground beakers, figures and animals, many of them from named private collections in Britain and America. The plates are a record of Western taste in Chinese ceramics in 1911 as much as of the objects themselves.

Even age toning. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left. Several larger brown marks.

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