Late Ming Square Flower Vase, Four Accomplishments, Gorer Plate 1911

An original antique color plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, 1911, this sheet shows a quadrangular vase with sides flaring outward, used for growing bulbs or cut flowers. On a green and yellow lozenge trellis, each side has a panel of white reticulated hexagons with a rocky pine landscape and figures at one of the four elegant accomplishments: chess or go-bang, painting, writing and music. The authors note the vase was filled with wet moss for bulbs or cut flowers. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Late Ming period and record it in the Salting Collection; height 6 7/8 inches (18 cm), width 6 7/8 inches (18 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. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.

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