1 82 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



He served in the Revolution as Aid to Gen. Knox, and at its 

 close he imported one set for Gen. Washington, one for Gen. 

 Knox, and the other he kept. The latter was for many years on 

 Staten Island, the property of the great nephew of the importer. 

 At Mrs. Shaw's death the china was divided among her 

 daughters. I read of two complete sets of china that belonged to 

 Mr. Elias H. Derby of Boston, a very wealthy merchant of that 

 city at the beginning of the last century. His wife came from 

 Hingham, Mass., where with some of his wealth he endowed the 

 Derby Academy, an institution of learning which still flourishes. 

 I know of two saucers and a cup of Lowestoft which probably 

 were part of these sets. One has on it the maiden initails of 

 Madam Derby as she was always called, and the other is 

 decorated with the fine black landscape. 



The variety in the decoration of this china is equaled only by 

 the various localities in which it is found, up and down the 

 Atlantic seaboard, treasured in corner cupboards or tucked away 

 on the top shelves of private families, or displayed in the cases of 

 museums, its delicate colors and quaint shapes ever a pleasure to 

 the eye, and the stories of its importation ever a delight to the 

 imagination. 



Many of these pieces bear the coat of arms and the initials of 

 the importer himself and yet the place of its manufacture seemed 

 to be shrouded in mystery. And the authorities differ. Did our 

 seagoing forebears get the china in England or the East? Was 

 the body made in China and decorated in Lowestoft? Or did 

 the Lowestoft potters make the body and decorate it, at home? 

 Or did the Chinaman with his aptitude for copying make the 

 body and decorate it after a copy brought from the western 

 world. 



Mr. Owen in " Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol," 

 says : " The tradition that such ware was made in Lowestoft in 

 I 775 rests upon evidence too slight to be worthy of argument. 

 The East India Company imported into England large quantities 

 of porcelain for sale. This particular ware was simply in form 



