In an early letter of Cookworthy’s we find him speaking of a certain unnamed, strange individual who came to him with some china earth. “’Twas found in the back of Virginia, where he was in quest of mines; and having read Duhalde, discovered both the petuntse and kaolin. ’Tis the latter earth he says, is the essential thing towards the success of the manufacture. He is gone for a cargo of it, having bought the whole country of the Indians where it rises.” We hear no more of this mysterious individual; but we do hear of extensive and painstaking researches by Cookworthy, till at length he is rewarded by discovering the very earth he wanted, in Cornwall, on the estate of Lord Camelford.
He established himself at Coxside, at the extreme angle which juts into the water at Sutton Pool. The buildings subsequently became a shipwright’s yard, and even then bore the name China House. We wonder, do they exist now?
The early examples of Plymouth are clumsy, sometimes very coarse and rough. Experience was wanting in firing. Most of the pieces were disfigured by fire-cracks. Of those decorated in blue the colour had run into the glazing. But Cookworthy did one thing—he was the first to produce cobalt blue direct from the ore.
The white ware of Plymouth, in which is introduced as ornament shells and seaweed and coral, is very artistic, and is one of the features of Plymouth, although none of this ware is marked. They mostly consist of salt-cellars, pickle-cups, and what would now be used to put roses in. The salt-cellar we illustrate is one of a pair in the Bethnal Green Museum; it has a plain, white body and cloudy glaze, and is unmarked. Similar shapes are believed to have been made at Bow. We reproduce a dainty piece, a shell dish of beautiful design, and ask—was Cookworthy a failure?
During the latter part of the fourteen years that Plymouth produced her china, Cookworthy, then nearing his seventieth year, thought to emulate Sèvres and Dresden, and employed several artists for decoration. He engaged the services of a French artist named Soqui from Sèvres, and he and Henry Bone, of Plymouth—one of his own apprentices—produced some finely-painted birds and flowers.
WHITE PORCELAIN DISH—PLYMOUTH.
The mark of the Plymouth china is blue on the early clumsy pieces, and later was neatly drawn in red, sometimes blue. It is the chemical symbol for tin, being doubtless adopted by Cookworthy to denote that his materials came from the tin district. It is like the figure four, with a little curved loop at the beginning.
VASE (16 IN. HIGH), PLYMOUTH.