First edition. Title printed in red and black, numerous illustrations in the text. 8vo. Original cloth. Overall a very good copy. 63pp. London, Privately Published & Printed, and sold by James Gilbert, 1851.
The work is based on the Xuanhe bogu tu, an illustrated catalogue of some 800 archaic bronzes in the collection of the Sung Dynasty’s Huizong Emperor. The text of the catalogue goes back to the 12th century but the work was reprinted by the order of the Qianlong Emperor in 1752. The present work reproduces a selection of 42 vases together with a translation of the inscriptions as well as details on their size and weight. Thoms had published the article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Socity of Great Britain and Ireland in 1834 under the title “Description of Ancient Chinese Vases”. P. P. Thoms (?-1951) came to China on behalf of the East India Company and was the first to set up a European movable type printing press in Canton in 1814. He printed Morrison’s comprehensive ‘Chinese Dictionary’ in three volumes between 1815 and 1822. He returned to England in 1825 and in the 1830s set up his own printing shop in Warwick Square in the 1830s.
