of shaped oval form, painted to either side with a coastal landscape vignette within gilt lined borders, the well painted with the crest of Cooke, the front painted with a bold coat of arms. 22.5cm long

P.B. Cooke Collection

The collection was started in the 1920s by Phil’s father – who bought at that time from Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig, the eminent London dealer and first author of a book on armorial wares, from his gallery ‘The Century House’ in Knightsbridge, which closed around 1929. Phil continued collecting, buying much from the collector/dealer Cecil Bullivant, and by the 1960s, his collection had become the largest in the world. My late husband first met him in the late ’50s, and his first volume of Chinese Armorial Porcelain illustrates 220 examples from the Cooke Collection.

Angela Howard

The arms are of Cooke quartering Warren with Twysden in pretence. Sir George Cooke was knighted in 1715 and became Chief Protonotary of the Common Pleas, marrying Catherine, co-heir of Sir Thomas Twysden, 4th Baronet of East Peckham in Kent.