Square Bottle with Iron Red Flowers on Apple Green, Gorer Plate 1911

An original antique color plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, 1911, this sheet shows a square bottle vase on an apple green ground with the flowers of the four seasons in iron red. Each framed side has aubergine and green rocks at its edges, from which the season flowers rise in brilliant rouge de fer among birds and insects, with the sun in the sky. Groups of red roses on trees rising from rocks run round the neck, and the authors single out the strength of the red. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Ming period and record it as from the collection formed by Richard Bennett; height 19 3/8 inches (49 cm), width 5 7/8 inches (15 cm).

Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker brought out Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones in 1911 through Bernard Quaritch, the New Bond Street bookseller, in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. The two volumes carry two hundred and fifty four color plates, each a full page photographic reproduction of a single piece or group, with a tissue guard and a facing description in English and French. 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 made while large collections of Chinese porcelain were being formed in Britain and America, and the text names the collections that held many of the pieces illustrated, among them those of P. A. B. Widener, George Salting and Richard Bennett.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom edge. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. One larger brown mark.

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