Two Famille Noire Square Bottles with Flowers of the Seasons, Plate 1911

This antique color plate is Plate 6 of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, 1911. It shows two famille noire square bottles with cylindrical necks, each side a panel framed in white, numbered No. 1 and No. 2. The larger bottle (No. 1) shows the flowers of the seasons, prunus, lotus rising from water, peony and chrysanthemum, with birds on the neck. The smaller (No. 2) is hung with prunus branches in white and red among perched birds, with ju-i heads at the shoulder corners. Gorer and Blacker describe both as Early Kang-he period and record them in the Salting Collection; No. 1 height 19 3/4 inches (50 cm), width 5 3/4 inches (15 cm); No. 2 height 19 inches (48 cm), width 5 3/4 inches (15 cm).

Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones was issued in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, in two large quarto volumes limited to one thousand numbered copies. Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker wrote the text, which runs in English and French, and the two hundred and fifty four plates were printed in color from photographs of the pieces themselves rather than drawn by hand. This sheet is one of them. 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.

Gorer and Blacker chose the showpieces of the trade: tall black ground vases, green ground beakers, figures and animals, many of them from named private collections in Britain and America. The plates are a record of Western taste in Chinese ceramics in 1911 as much as of the objects themselves.

Even age toning. Slight wear at the bottom right corner. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the right. One larger brown mark.

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