Two Quadrangular Vases, Green and Yellow Grounds, Four Seasons, 1911

This is Plate 40 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a group of two quadrangular vases, one on a mottled green ground and one on yellow, with the flowers of the four seasons. The green vase shows prunus with finches, peony with a small sun, lotus with two cranes and chrysanthemum with insects; the yellow vase repeats the seasons with a rose in place of the peony. Both have floral shoulders and zigzag or key borders. Gorer and Blacker describe them as late Ming period and record them in the Salting Collection; green vase height 18 1/8 inches (46 cm), width 5 3/4 inches (15 cm); yellow vase height 19 1/2 inches (50 cm), width 5 7/8 inches (15 cm).

The plate comes from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, the two volume work that Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker published through Bernard Quaritch of 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, London, in 1911. Two hundred and fifty four full page plates were printed in color by a photo mechanical process, each one facing a page of letterpress in English and French that described the piece. The edition was limited to 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.

Each sheet shows a single piece or group photographed against a plain ground, at a consistent scale and format throughout the book, with the plate number printed in red below. The book's text, which faced each plate, gives the authors' description, the period they assigned and the collection the piece was in.

Even age toning. All four corners complete.

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