Famille Noire Baluster Vase with Golden Pheasants, Color Plate 1911

An original antique color plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, 1911, this sheet shows a famille noire baluster vase, the black ground under brilliant green enamel. Peony, yulan magnolia and peach trees rise from aubergine and green rocks, with two feng-huang on the rocks and two golden pheasants above, one perched in the peach tree and one flying. The authors explain the three successive layers of enamel. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Kang-he period and record it in the collection of Mrs. Colis P. Huntington; height 17 1/2 inches (45 cm), diameter 8 inches (20 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.

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