Willcox: Lowestoft Ware 181 



larger, on the outside, or else, growing from a funny flat flower- 

 pot or basket, the red rose and many buds or smaller blossoms. 



Other pieces have the beautiful deep blue border, ornamented 

 with lines and dots and conventional oak leaves or stars in gold 

 on the blue, and bunches of gold-veined blue roses and pinks and 

 other familiar flowers. These blue and gold bordered pieces 

 often have monograms and coats of arms in gold and blue and 

 were made of course for the original owner. Others have on 

 their sides medallions in sepia framed in the same blue and gold 

 of the border. The medallions are true English landscapes, with 

 houses in which Miss Edgeworth's characters might have lived, 

 and the trees are round, full-topped specimens of the English 

 oak, not the pagodas and scraggy willows of the Chinese. Some- 

 times these little picture decorations are like pen and ink sketches 

 in black and white, but they always preserve the characteristic 

 features of their European surroundings. 



I find in the Metropolitan Museum a tea set of Lowestoft, with 

 the blue border besprinkled with gold stars, and a graceful mono- 

 gram in blue and gold script on every piece. There are no 

 samples of the flowerpot decoration in red and green. These 

 pieces are in the case of English chinas, but the label says 

 Lowestoft is a misnomer as this ware is Oriental in body and 

 decoration. 



There are in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts three pieces of 

 " Lowestoft certified to have been made in England." They are 

 less delicate than the pearly hard paste porcelain. They are of 

 a creamy tint and the decorations are bands and veins of pink 

 and gold and bunches of flowers, roses, etc., in their natural 

 colors. 



The Lowestoft china was certainly a favorite with our colonial 

 ancestors both north and south. The magnificent dinner service 

 decorated in blue and gold and green with the badge of the Order 

 of Cincinnatus, a piece of which is on exhibition in our loan 

 collection, the property of Mrs. Geo. Wm. Curtis, is one of three 

 imported by Mr. Samuel Shaw, a china merchant of Boston. 



