Pair of Wine Pots Modeled as Boys, Kang-he Porcelain, Gorer Plate 1911

This is Plate 88 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a pair of wine pots of uncommon form modeled as standing boys on lotus stands. The tuft of hair lifts off to fill each pot, the arm holding a pierced pomegranate is the spout and the arm on the hip is the handle. One apron is green with flowers, the other pink with a crane in clouds, and the white stands have a double row of red shaded lotus petals. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Kang-he period; height 9 1/2 inches (24 cm), width 4 1/4 inches (11 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. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

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