Late Ming Yellow Ground Vase with Engraved Prunus, Magnolia and Peony, 1911

This antique color plate is Plate 60 of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, 1911. It shows a nearly pear-shaped baluster vase with engraved, raised and colored ornament on a mottled yellow ground. Leafless prunus and yulan magnolia and an aubergine peony grow from green rocks, with an aubergine sun and a green bird above. A band of erect palmettes over a double raised fillet circles the neck. Gorer and Blacker describe it as late Ming period and record it in a private collection; height 14 3/4 inches (38 cm), diameter 7 inches (18 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.