Description
The Tates, one of the leading merchant families in Portland during the colonial era, owned a small collection of Chinese export porcelain, including this cup and saucer. It is decorated with a brown glaze known as Batavian type. Shards from tea wares with the same decoration were recovered archaeologically at Tate House in the 1950s.
George Tate (1700-1794) came to Portland with his family in about 1750 and served as the king's mast agent for the Royal Navy until the Revolutionary War.
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