OLD LOWESTOFT (BLUE AND WHITE).
Toy Teapot and Cream Jug (2 in. high). Inkstand (dated 1791).
There are also unglazed fragments for basket-work, and Lowestoft figures, unglazed, ready for firing. There are ribbed tea-cups and cups with cornflower decoration. Among other fragments are a great number of toy teapots and toy cups only an inch or two in height, decorated in blue. We give an illustration of this toy ware painted under-glaze in blue.
The bulk of these moulds and fragments are in the possession of W. Rix Spelman, Esq., of Norwich, and it is to be hoped that careful study and research will, by means of these indisputable facts, re-establish the reputation of Lowestoft—
“Defamed by every charlatan
And soil’d with all ignoble use.”
Mr. Crisp, of Denmark Hill, London, possesses some of the moulds which were disinterred at the first discovery on the Lowestoft site. He has had china made in them and baked, and has presented the results to the British Museum, where they are now exhibited. They seem too poorly made to show to advantage the delicate patterns in relief.
The headpiece ([p. 113]) shows two sauce-boats, blue and white, with raised decoration. It will be seen from the fragment of mould, photographed with them, how exactly this newly discovered mould helps to identify the pieces.
Among the fragments is part of a teapot mould, on which is the date 1761. Chaffers, in his authoritative work on china, remarks of Lowestoft that some of the larger pieces bear traces of having been “made in a mould,” and here, just a hundred years after the factory ceased, comes corroborative evidence.