Tall Kang-he Vase with Feng Huang and Peonies, Gorer Plate 1911

This antique color plate is Plate 108 of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, 1911. It shows a tall cylindrical vase with iron red and enamel decoration of feng huang among rocks and flowering trees. Feng huang, or Ho-Ho birds, perch among rocks with large peony branches and a peach tree in iron red blossom, and a red amaryllis grows at the base. The neck repeats the flowers, with peonies and yulan magnolia. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Kang-he period and record it in the collection of Mrs. Colis P. Huntington; height 2 feet 6 inches (77 cm), diameter 9 1/2 inches (24 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. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. Several larger brown marks.

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