Chats on oriental china
A 1908 New York survey of Chinese and Japanese ceramics by J. F. Blacker, written as an introductory guide for general collectors and drawn from the Smithsonian Libraries. The four plates are photographs of objects on dark wooden stands against plain grey backdrops, showing a cloisonne-like vase with blossoms, a lidded jar with white flowering branches, a standing robed porcelain figure, and a pierced scholar's rock with carved figures. A designer could take from them the dark ground with white floral sprays, the sweeping robe folds, and the knobbly rock forms.
