The un-Chinese nature of these decorations, which is apparent at the first glance, justifies their segregation. Indeed, the foreign features are in many cases so conspicuous that it is small wonder if in days when little was known of Chinese ceramic history these wares were often attributed to European manufacture. We now know so much of the intercourse between China and Europe in the past, and of the enormous trade carried on by the various East India companies, that no surprise is felt at the idea of orders for table services sent out to China with armorial and other designs for their decoration. Not that anyone whose eye was really trained to appreciate the peculiarities of Chinese porcelain could ever mistake the nature of these wares. The paste and glaze are, with few exceptions, uncompromisingly Chinese, no matter how closely the decorator with his proverbial genius for imitation may have rendered the European design. And even here, if the Oriental touch is not betrayed in some detail, the Chinese colours and gilding will disclose themselves to the initiate. It is hardly necessary here to allude to the absurd notion that any of this group was made at the little English factory of Lowestoft. If an error which has once had currency is ever completely dissipated, Chaffers’s great blunder on the subject of Chinese armorial porcelain should be forgotten by now. But it is high time that those who are fully aware of the facts of the case should abandon the equally stupid and wholly illogical expression, “Oriental Lowestoft,” not for Lowestoft porcelain decorated in Chinese style, which would be reasonable enough, but (save the mark!) for Chinese porcelain decorated with European designs. As if, indeed, an insignificant Suffolk pottery, which made no enamelled porcelain[459] until about 1770, had any influence on the decoration of a Chinese ware which was distributed all over Europe during the whole of the century. The European style of flower painting and the European border patterns were used by the Chinese decorators on this class of ware in the last half of the century, but they were the patterns which originated at Meissen and Sèvres, and which were adopted and developed at Chelsea, Derby and Worcester. Any of these wares might have found their way to China and served as models to the Canton decorators, but the likelihood of Lowestoft porcelain exerting any appreciable influence in the Far East is simply laughable.