Two Yellow Boys with Cups, Ming Porcelain Figures, Color Plate, 1911

This is Plate 76 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing two figures of boys in yellow coats, each carrying a cup, on rockwork stands. The boy on the right has an aubergine face and a yellow coat with stars, flower sprays and white flower panels; the boy on the left has a white face and a yellow coat with white star flowers. Both wear green breeches and archaic horned hairstyles, and stand on rockwork in aubergine, yellow and green. Gorer and Blacker describe them as Ming period and record them in the collection formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., D.L.; height 11 1/2 inches (29 cm), width 4 1/2 inches (11 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. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

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