Pair of Gourd Shaped Wine Ewers, Famille Verte, Antique Plate 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 gourd-shaped wine ewers and covers with basketwork handles and spouts. Handles and spouts imitate basketwork with black swastikas; the lower bodies, one seeded green and one apple green, hold white panels of sacred objects and of plants on rocks. The upper parts have apple-green grounds with yellow scrolls, and the covers end in small lion knobs. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Early Kang-he period and record them in the collection of S. E. Kennedy, Esq.; height 8 1/2 inches (22 cm), width 6 inches (15 cm).

The sheet is a plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, published by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, written by the London dealer Edgar Gorer with J. F. Blacker and printed in color by a photo mechanical process. The work ran to two volumes and two hundred and fifty four plates in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. 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.

In Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones every piece or group is given a whole page to itself, so each plate is a complete image on its own, set in a wide margin, with the printed plate number as the only lettering on the sheet.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the top left and top right corners. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the top. Several larger brown marks.

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