Lotus Arabesque Vases in Underglaze Blue, Two Kang-he Plates, 1911

This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 140 and 141 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: blue and white arabesque vases. Plate 140: Group of three vases: a double gourd, a narrow and a wide-necked bottle. Decorated in blue upon white with an arabesque design of conventional lotus and foliage, each flower appearing as a rosette supported by its stem. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 18 1/2 inches (47 cm); diameter 8 3/8 inches (21 cm), the book giving a size for each piece shown. In the collection of G. R. Davies, Esq. Plate 141: Group of two vases. The club-shaped vase (No. 2) has a continuous arabesque of flowers and foliage reserved in white on a fine cobalt ground, interrupted by six white panels framed with white fillets enclosed by two blue lines. The cylindrical vase (No. 1) has a brocade pattern of foliated chih-lung and peony reserved in white on a blue ground, interrupted by six round panels. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records height 17 3/4 inches (45 cm); diameter 8 inches (20.5 cm), the book giving a size for each piece shown. In the collection of J. B. Lee, Esq.

The sheets come from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, the two volume work by the London dealer Edgar Gorer and the writer J. F. Blacker, published by Bernard Quaritch of 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, in 1911 in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. 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.

What gives these plates their standing is the quality of the collections they record. Pieces illustrated here passed through the great Edwardian cabinets, and several are now in museums, so the book is a photographic record of where this material sat a century ago.

Collectors of Chinese ceramics, of early color printing and of Edwardian book illustration all look for these plates, and they work equally well in an interior scheme as in a collection. The two sheets are the same size and were printed by the same hand, so they hang as one group.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.

Even age toning throughout. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two sheets.