Four Bowls with Dragon and Feng-huang Holding the Sacred Jewel, Plate, 1911

Plate 187 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of four bowls, one with prunus and a yellow finch on black and green, another with a dragon and feng-huang holding the sacred jewel. Four bowls. One has a black ground covered with brilliant green, with an aubergine branch of prunus flowers and green twigs without foliage rising from green rocks, various grasses in green, a yellow peony, and at the back a yellow finch with green wings flying in the air. One bowl has a yellow ground with a four-clawed dragon and a feng-huang holding the white sacred jewel between them amongst clouds and flames, the dragon's scales green outlined in aubergine. and records height 3 5/8 inches (9 cm); diameter 7 1/2 inches (19 cm).

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 this sheet is one of 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.

Edgar Gorer was one of the most visible dealers in Chinese art of his generation. He traded as S. Gorer and Son at 170 New Bond Street with a branch at 500 Fifth Avenue in New York, dealt chiefly in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong porcelain, and sold to Sir William Lever. He died on 7 May 1915 when the Lusitania was torpedoed, and his body was never recovered.

Hung as a group with other plates from the same work, it builds into a decorative scheme with a common palette and a common hand.

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

Even age toning. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.