“There cannot be any doubt that hard porcelain, vitrified and translucent, was never manufactured from the raw materials, native kaolin and petunste, at any other locality in England than Plymouth and Bristol. The tradition that such ware was made at Lowestoft in 1775 rests upon evidence too slight to be worthy of argument. The East India Company imported into England large quantities of porcelain for sale; and in the provincial journals of the last century advertisements of sales by auction of East India china occur frequently. This particular ware, which is very plentiful, even at the present day, and which has of late acquired the reputation of having been made at Lowestoft, was simply, in form and ornamentation, only a reproduction by the Chinese of English earthenware models. The Chinese do not use saucers, butter-boats, and numbers of other articles after the European fashion, and the agents in China were compelled to furnish a model for every piece of ware ordered. These models the Asiatic workmen have copied only too faithfully. 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 by-gone days.” He also says, “It is painful to see in public and private collections examples of Oriental ware labelled Lowestoft, simply because, though hard porcelain, they bear English armorial coats and initials. Many porcelain punch-bowls are to be found in seaport towns with names and portraits of ships and very early dates. Those bowls are often attributed to the works at Liverpool and Lowestoft. The officers of the East India Company’s ships were accustomed to take out English Delft bowls and get them reproduced in common porcelain in China for their merchant friends, and many a relic now prized as of home manufacture was procured in this manner.” Mr. Prime writes more cautiously, after describing the pieces: “These are supposed to have been made on special patterns furnished to the Oriental factories by the East India Company. They resemble European work in the decoration, and many of the Lowestoft paintings seem to be imitations of these. It is, therefore, necessary to be very cautious in classifying wares as of Lowestoft fabric.” And again he says, “The presence of a single decoration like a flower or sprig of flowers in European style on porcelain is not a sufficient reason for classing the porcelain as European. Many such pieces were printed in Japan and in China. And others are possibly the work of decorators in Holland.” Mr. Elliott says of Lowestoft in America: “It seems certain that this kind of decoration was done at Lowestoft; it is equally certain that it was also done in China, from designs sent out there. I have myself seen pieces so decorated which were imported direct from China to New Haven about the end of the last century.”