Wide Necked Bottle with Carp and Relief Dragon, Famille Verte Plate 1911

This antique color plate is Plate 114 of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, 1911. It shows a wide-necked globular famille verte bottle with carp in high relief and a dragon coiled round the neck. Four gilt and colored carp swim in high relief over green waves breaking on rocks, among prunus blossoms, while a four-clawed dragon in openwork relief encircles the neck reaching for a jewel. The authors read it as the fish that became a dragon at the Dragon Gate, a reminder to the student of success in the examinations. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Kang-he period; height 13 1/2 inches (34 cm), diameter 9 inches (23 cm).

This is one of the two hundred and fifty four color plates in Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, published in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911 for Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker. The piece was photographed and the plate printed in color, so the glaze, the palette and the modeling of the original are carried over directly rather than interpreted by a draftsman. Each plate faced a page of description in English and French. 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.

Edgar Gorer (1872 to 1915) was a London dealer in Chinese art. He traded as S. Gorer and Son from 170 New Bond Street, opened a shop at 500 Fifth Avenue in New York, and sold to Sir William Lever, later Lord Leverhulme. He was lost on 7 May 1915 when the Lusitania was torpedoed.

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.