COOKWORTHY TAKES OUT A PATENT. 233 



pared by grinding foreign imported zaffres with slab and 

 muller; but after a series of experiments he succeeded in 

 producing a fine and excellent blue from the cobalt ore, 

 and prepared it by a better process. It is said that Cook- 

 worthy himself painted some of the earlier blue and white 

 productions of his manufactory, and this is not at all 

 improbable. The white porcelain of Plymouth is one of 

 its notable features, for in it some remarkably fine works 

 exist in different collections. These mostly consist of salt- 

 cellars, pickle-cups, and toilet-pieces, formed of shells and 

 corals, beautifully, indeed exquisitely, modelled from nature. 

 The shells and corals, and other marine objects which com- 

 pose these pieces, are remarkably true to nature, and their 



arrangement in groups is very artistic and good, as will be 

 seen in the accompanying engravings. 



In 1768 Cookworthy took out a patent for the manu- 

 facture of a " kind of porcelain newly invented by me, 

 composed of moor-stone or growan, and growan clay." The 

 patent was dated the 17th of March, 1768, and contained the 

 usual proviso that full specification should be lodged and en- 

 rolled within four months of that date, which was duly done.* 



Cookworthy, who determined to make his porcelain equal 

 to that of Sevres and Dresden, both in body, which he 

 himself mixed, and in ornamentation, for which he procured 



* For this specification, and a full account of the Plymouth China 

 Works, see the Art- Journal for September, 1863. 



