Lot Essay
From the famous service made for Leake Okeover (1702-65) and Mary Nichol Okeover for which the original invoices survives, sent to "Leake Okeover Esqre." from Joseph Congreve, commander of the East Indiaman Prislowe, one dated 1743 and reading "...from ye Jerusalem Coffee House, Change Alley, a consignment of fifty plates and four large dishes with your arms". The original drawing also survives, reading "...a pattern for china plate. Pattern to be returned." Leake and Mary Okeover died without children but their estates at Okeover passed to a cousin and are still in the family, a total of 800 years. See D.S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, p. 398. See also Howard & Ayers, op. cit., p. 413, where the authors call the Okeover service "one of the finest ever made" and reproduce the drawing and one of the invoices