About this sheet
This is a set of two original 1911 color plates, Plates 163 and 164 from Volume II of Gorer and Blacker's Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, sold together as one lot. What links them: copper red monochrome groups. Plate 163: Vases, a pair, baluster-shaped. Covered with a brilliant red glaze, sang de bœuf, the lang-yao of collectors; the glaze is crackled very much. This sang de bœuf (copper-red) is chief amongst the few reds which are crackled, the color varying in tone according to the temperature of firing. The book gives it to the Ming period and records height 11 1/4 inches (28.5 cm); diameter 8 inches (20.3 cm). In the collection of Edward Wassermann, Esq. Plate 164: Group of three vases. Colored with the beautiful red glaze derived from copper, rouge de cuivre, thick, almost transparent, and crackled; the coloring matter is mixed with a transparent glaze. One piece is dark red; the long-necked bottle on the right has much smaller crackles, the upper rim nearly white changing into deep red upon the neck and shoulder, with a curious whitish tone on the body, a variety the Chinese call "crushed strawberry.". The book gives it to the Ming period and records height 8 inches (20 cm); diameter 3 1/2 inches (9 cm), the book giving a size for each piece shown. In the collection of Edward Wassermann, Esq.
Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, by Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker, was published in London by Bernard Quaritch in 1911 in two volumes with two hundred and fifty four color plates, and these sheets are among them, from Volume II. The plates are color collotypes, a photographic process that reproduces continuous tone without a visible dot screen, which is why the glazes keep their depth on paper.
The book appeared at the height of the Edwardian passion for Chinese porcelain, when English and American collections were being formed at speed and a dealer's catalog could shape taste. R. L. Hobson of the British Museum attacked Gorer's attributions in print when the work appeared, and later scholarship has revised many attributions of this kind, which is part of what makes the volumes interesting to read now.
Framed simply in a dark wood molding with a generous cream mount, it holds a wall on its own and sits comfortably beside furniture of almost any period. The two sheets are the same size and were printed by the same hand, so they hang as one group.
These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.
Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of one of the two sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.
This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
