Very Large Famille Noire Beaker Vase with Prunus and Bamboo, Plate 1911

This is Plate 10 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a very large famille noire beaker vase bearing the Ch'eng Hua mark under the base. White prunus blossom springs from green branches above green and aubergine rocks, with bamboo and narcissus at the foot and green and yellow birds in the trees. A border of guelder roses marks the base of the neck, where the body design is repeated. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Ming period and record it in the Salting Collection; height 27 1/2 inches (70 cm), diameter 10 3/8 inches (26 cm).

The plate belongs to Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, Bernard Quaritch, 1911, the book in which the dealer Edgar Gorer and the writer J. F. Blacker illustrated and described two hundred and fifty four pieces of Chinese ceramic and glyptic art. The edition was limited to one thousand numbered copies in two large quarto volumes, with the color plates protected by tissue guards. 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.

The book records the Edwardian taste for Chinese porcelain, when the famille noire and famille verte wares that collectors associate with the Kangxi period were among the most sought after. R. L. Hobson of the British Museum criticized the book, and later scholarship has revised many attributions of this kind; the periods given in this listing are the authors' own, as printed in 1911.

Even age toning. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. Several larger brown marks.

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