Ming Jars and Covers, Aubergine Rolling Wave Design, Antique Color Plate, 1911

Plate 193 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of a pair of jars and covers with an aubergine ground carrying the rolling wave design taken from the emperor's embroidered robe. Pair of jars and covers. An aubergine ground with the "rolling-wave" design, derived from the border of the embroidered robe of the emperor and thus described: "The lower border is worked with a line of waves, with crested summits and floating symbols, beating"; the design is repeated on the cover, which has a plain knob. The book gives it to the Ming period and records height 13 inches (32.5 cm); diameter 9 inches (22.5 cm).

It was published in 1911 by Bernard Quaritch of New Bond Street, London, in Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, a work of two volumes and two hundred and fifty four color plates limited to 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.

A sheet of this size frames well at about forty by fifty centimeters and suits a study, a hallway or a dining room where its color can be seen close to.

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

Even age toning. All four corners complete.