Herbert George Ponting (1871-1935) Selected Images (comprising 'Painting Porcelain', 'In Lotus-Land', and 'The Potter'), c. 1904 Three carbon prints; each with the photographer's blindstamp on the image, titled and numbered in ink and the photographer's copyright stamp on the reverse. various sizes to 15 1/4 x 21 1/2 in. (38.7 x 54.6 cm.) the sheets 22 x 30 1/2 in. (55.9 x 77.5 cm.) Footnotes: Literature Herbert George Ponting, In Lotus-Land Japan (London, 1910), n.p. (all images illustrated) Note 'One old potter at Kinkosan's always interested me more than any other. [...] Many an hour I have spent watching him slicing off a lump of clay and slapping it on to his throwing wheel, which, with a few deft turns of his hand, he set spinning rapidly on its axis. Then, as if he were some necromancer casting a magic spell upon it, the shapeless lifeless clay rose up to meet the master's hand, and I almost expected the old fellow to mutter some incantation as, with fingers and spatula, he quickly made it swell out and hollowed it, and narrowed it again for the neck, and swelled it again for the lip, until, almost before my fascinated gaze could take it in, hey! presto! the thing was done; then, taking a piece of wire, he cut it loose from the wheel and placed it on the floor beside him - a graceful vase, matching its fellows in all proportions to the fraction of an inch.' -Herbert George Ponting (In Lotus-Land Japan, p. 51) For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing