The arms are those of Okeover impaling Nichol. Leake Okeover was born in 1702, the son of Thomas and Catherine (née Leake); he married, in about 1730, Mary, daughter of John Nichol, and died without issue in 1765. This service represents the only known instance in which the original painting sent out to China for copying onto the porcelain still exists. It is also one of the very few services for which an original bill exists. It is addressed 'from ye Jerusalem Coffee House, Change Alley', by Joseph Congreve, Commander of the ship Prislowe, to 'Leake Okeover Esqre', and is dated 1743. Although armorial services of this type were carried on East India Company ships as part of a cargo, they in fact formed part of the much more valuable 'private cargo' carried as a concession by captains and supercargoes; their carriage in effect financed by the Company while the profit was made by the Company servants themselves. It seems likely that private trade porcelain was often ten times - and in the case of the Leake Okeover service perhaps a hundred times - as expensive as the routine china-trade porcelain carried on the Company's own account. For a discussion on this service see D. Howard and J. Ayers, op. cit., pp. 36-7, 292, 379 and p. 415 for a colour illustration. Cf. also D. S. Howard, op. cit., p. 398 and colour frontispiece; A. Tudor-Craig, op. cit., p. 121 and M. Jourdain and R. S. Jenyns, op. cit., pl. 76