Kuan Ti, Black Ground Cup and Saucer and Court Lady, Gorer Plate 1911

Printed in color in London in 1911 for Bernard Quaritch, this original antique plate shows a group of a standing Kuan Ti, a black ground cup and saucer, and a standing court lady. Kuan Ti wears a black coat with cranes among flames over yellow scale armor; the cup and saucer, one of a pair, have peonies and yulan magnolia rising from rocks on black, and the lady wears green robes with flowers and rosettes on black. Gorer and Blacker describe the court lady as late Ming or early Kang-he period and record both figures in the collection of P. A. B. Widener and the cup and saucer in that of Deming Jarves; Kuan Ti height 10 inches (25 cm), cup height 2 1/4 inches (6 cm), saucer diameter 6 3/8 inches (16 cm), lady height 9 inches (23 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. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. Several larger brown marks.

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