Two Hexagonal Covered Vases and a Square Beaker, Ming, Plate 1911

Plate 43 of the 1911 book Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original color plate of Chinese porcelain, illustrates a group of two hexagonal vases with covers and a square beaker of bronze form. The vases have lozenge trellis grounds within aubergine-framed palmettes, lotus petal borders, and yellow knobs on the covers. The beaker has a green key pattern ground with the pa kua on yellow tablets at its square central swelling. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Ming period and record them as from the collection formed by Richard Bennett; vases height 10 3/8 inches (27 cm), width 3 5/8 inches (9 cm); beaker height 9 7/8 inches (25 cm), width 3 7/8 inches (10 cm).

The sheet is a plate from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, published by Bernard Quaritch in 1911, written by the London dealer Edgar Gorer with J. F. Blacker and printed in color by a photo mechanical process. The work ran to two volumes and two hundred and fifty four plates in an edition of one thousand numbered copies. 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.

In Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones every piece or group is given a whole page to itself, so each plate is a complete image on its own, set in a wide margin, with the printed plate number as the only lettering on the sheet.

Even age toning. A few small foxing spots 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.