Yellow and Apple Green Paneled Quadrangular Vase, Ming, Plate 1911

This is Plate 34 from Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, an original 1911 color plate of Chinese porcelain showing a quadrangular vase with a pyramidal base, each side in panels of yellow and apple green. The large panels show the four seasons: a white peony and a yellow and aubergine lotus on green, chrysanthemum and prunus rising from green rocks on yellow. The small panels of the neck and base carry rocks with wild flowers and berried plants. Gorer and Blacker describe it as Ming period and record it in the collection of P. A. B. Widener; height 20 1/8 inches (51 cm), width 8 inches (20 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. One larger brown mark.

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