Pair of Quadrangular Arrow Stands on Pierced Pedestals, Gorer Plate 1911

This is Plate 46 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a pair of quadrangular arrow stands with pierced hollow pedestals, on stippled green grounds of two tones. Brocade arabesques of peonies, small clouds and chih-lung cover each face, divided by raised key pattern bands, with peach branches and raised pierced shou tablets. The pedestals that hold the stands carry matching brocade, a band of ju-i heads and a chih-lung tablet. Gorer and Blacker describe them as early Kang-he period and record them in the collection of G. L. Bevan; height 18 5/8 inches (47 cm), width 6 5/8 inches (17 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. All four corners complete. One larger brown mark.

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