Plate with coat of arms of the Lauder family

The many newly prosperous families of eighteenth-century Great Britain and Holland wanted services of table china decorated with their (sometimes freshly invented) coats of arms, and Chinese factories were ready to accommodate the demand.

This plate comes from a service for the Lauder family, descended from a wealthy Edinburgh merchant ennobled in 1690. The service from which it comes may have been acquired by Captain John Lauder, who commanded a British ship that traded at Guangzhou (Canton) in 1768 and 1770.