Willcox : Lowestoft Ware 183 



and ornamentation only a reproduction by the Chinese of English 

 earthenware models. The ill-drawn roses, the coarsely painted 

 baskets of flowers, the rude borders of lines and dots, are 

 literally copied from the inartistic painting on the English 

 earthenware of bygone days." 



Mr. Chaffers, another china authority, says : " There is such a 

 peculiarity in the form and quality of the Lowestoft porcelain 

 that we are surprised any one at all conversant with, or ac- 

 customed to see, collections of china could ever mistake it for 

 Oriental. We are now speaking of the body only ; of course 

 the decoration is still more conclusive. Any one who has paid 

 attention to the ornamentation on the Lowestoft china cannot 

 fail to have observed the peculiar touch of an artist who painted 

 the flowers upon it, especially the rose which we so frequently 

 find. These flowers were painted by Rose, and one striking 

 peculiarity in his mode of representing this flower is the appear- 

 ance of its having been plucked from the stalk and dropped upon 

 the surface, the stalk being seldom represented." 



I find that Mr. Prime writes : " There is a large class of 

 porcelains decorated with beautiful but generally stiff bouquets 

 and with vine borders in high relief, which are Oriental and are 

 classed by some collectors as porcelain of the Indies. These 

 are supposed to have been made on special patterns furnished to 

 the Oriental factories by the East India Companies. They re- 

 semble European work in the decoration and many of the 

 Lowestoft paintings seem to be imitations of these. It is there- 

 fore necessary to be very cautious in classifying wares as of 

 Lowestoft fabric." 



Then I find that Mr. Elliott in his "Pottery and Porcelain" 

 says that "much of this ware which is supposed to have been 

 imported from China was really made in Lowestoft." and that 

 " Some of the forms and decorations made at Lowestoft are so 

 like those made in China that it has been almost impossible to 

 distinguish them." 



Wl'.at conclusion do we reach? 



