Footnotes

• For a discussion of this extensive service, see W D John (1958), pp 46-48, and Oliver Fairclough, ECC Trans. Vol. 16 pt 2, The London China Trade 1800-1830, pp 210-212. It is thought that Thomas Coutts the banker ordered it from Mortlocks, the leading London china retailers at the time, probably following his marriage to the actress Harriet Mellon in 1818. 249 pieces of the service were sold in the Sale of Works of Art of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts in May 1922 at Christies. Pieces are now in many great public and private collections. A tureen and cover in the Royal Collection, was illustrated by John as the frontispiece to his book, and an ice pail in the Marquess of Bute collection is Illustration No. 37. An oval platter, similar to this lot but of larger size, in the National Museum of Wales, is Illustration No. 39B. The most recent research on the Sims workshop by Oliver Fairclough (op. cit. p. 209-10) reveals the difficulty of pinning down the identity of this decorator and the location of his workshop. Fairclough points out that John Haslem, in his book of 1876, The Old Derby China Factory, recorded the Derby-trained flower painter James Turner as working there, and he may be responsible for the painting on this dish.