The Two Giant Powder-blue Saucer Dishes, Kang-he Pair of Plates, 1911

This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 156 and 157 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: the two giant powder blue saucer dishes. Plate 156: Saucer-dish, of extraordinary size. Resembling Plate 157, having a wide border of gold brocade ground upon which is reserved the floral ornament in powder-blue outlined in gold of uncommon quality, the powder-blue being under the gold; eight large panels upon this border, and decoration of the famille verte and in rouge de fer. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records diameter 20 1/2 inches (52.2 cm). From the collection formed by Sir William Bennett. Plate 157: Saucer-dish, of extraordinary size. A ground of powder-blue and a wide border with a gold brocade pattern of reserved blue chrysanthemums outlined in gold, enclosing eight panels reserved in blue, with alternate decoration of utensils and groups of flowers in gold. The book gives it to the Kang-he period and records diameter 20 1/2 inches (52.2 cm). From the collection formed by Sir William Bennett.

The sheets come from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, the two volume work by the London dealer Edgar Gorer and the writer J. F. Blacker, published by Bernard Quaritch of 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, in 1911 in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. The plates are color collotypes, a photographic process that reproduces continuous tone without a visible dot screen, which is why the glazes keep their depth on paper.

What gives these plates their standing is the quality of the collections they record. Pieces illustrated here passed through the great Edwardian cabinets, and several are now in museums, so the book is a photographic record of where this material sat a century ago.

Hung as a group with other plates from the same work, it builds into a decorative scheme with a common palette and a common hand. The two sheets are the same size and were printed by the same hand, so they hang as one group.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.

Even age toning throughout. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two sheets.