Pair of Famille Verte Lanterns on Silver Stands, Gorer and Blacker 1911

An original color plate of 1911 from Gorer and Blacker's book of Chinese ceramic art, this sheet is given over to a pair of oviform famille verte porcelain lanterns on silver stands. Seeded green brocade grounds of formal flowers surround large white panels of landscapes, with swastika trellis borders enclosing small panels of mythological animals in iron red. The authors call them unique examples of fine famille verte on such rare objects. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Kang-he period and record them as from the collection formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., D.L.; height 15 1/2 inches (39 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. Handling soiling along the top edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the top left corner. Several larger brown marks.

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