In the collection of Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, at Albany, is quite a large dinner-service with the rose-decoration, which we can easily believe to be true Lowestoft. The colors are not brilliant, nor is the glaze perfect. The paste lacks the whiteness of the best Chinese, and is lighter than any true Chinese porcelain I have seen. Some persons in this country think that many or most of the dinner and tea services ordered in the United States during the last century, and which it was supposed were made in China, really came from Lowestoft through Liverpool or Bristol; among them those sets which bore initials in a sort of shield, and were finished on the edges with a deep-blue band studded with gold stars. 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 some pieces so decorated, which were imported direct from China to New Haven about the end of the last century.
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--_Lowestoft Porcelain._]
The perplexity and discussion existing as to the hard-paste porcelain made at Lowestoft have been increased by the statements made by Mr. Marryat and Mr. Jewett, in England, that much white undecorated porcelain was imported into Lowestoft from China, and was painted in England. 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. To a person not interested, this will seem a matter of the very slightest consequence; to a china-fancier quite the contrary. Sydney Smith, you will remember, said it was strange, but quite true, that "there were persons living who spoke disrespectfully of the equator, but we should bear with them and pity them." This advice we must apply to those who care nothing about porcelain.
Mr. Chaffers, in his work, "Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain," presents very strong and varied testimony to show that no white porcelain was imported from China and painted at Lowestoft; that the hard paste made at Lowestoft is quite different, and not so hard as that made in China, and need not be confounded with it. My own belief is that much of what is called "Lowestoft," both in England and in the United States, was made in China.