Famille Noire Beaker Vase with Nine Dragons, Antique Color Plate, 1911

An original antique color plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, 1911, this sheet shows a very tall famille noire beaker vase painted with nine four clawed dragons. The dragons strive for the precious jewel among green and white flames, each picked out in different combinations of aubergine, yellow and green. The authors note that four claws marked princes of the second rank. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Late Ming period and record it in the Salting Collection; height 27 1/2 inches (70 cm), diameter 10 1/2 inches (27 cm).

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones appeared in 1911 under the imprint of Bernard Quaritch, 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, London. Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker illustrated two hundred and fifty four pieces across two volumes, every one of them given a full page color plate printed from a photograph. Volume I, from which this sheet comes, runs from Plate 1 to Plate 135. 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 plates were printed in color from photographs of the pieces, so the black and green grounds, the iron red and the white of the porcelain are recorded directly rather than drawn by an artist. A plate from this book reads as a record of an object rather than as a decorative picture of one.

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.