In the British American colonies of the eighteenth century, fine European porcelain appeared only rarely. It was a special commodity even in the households of the affluent merchants and landowners. The only porcelains excavated at Williamsburg, for example, have been of lesser quality, blue-and-white transfer-printed porcelain.

In 1751 the Worcester Porcelain Manufactory in England was formed to meet the growing demand for white, soft-paste porcelain tableware. By 1755 the use of transfer-printing increased production at the manufactory and widened availability to a larger market. Benjamin Franklin purchased some Worcester porcelain while in London; he wrote to his wife Deborah in 1758, “I send you by Capt. Budden a large Case.... In the large case is another small Box, containing some English China [including] a Worcester Bowl, ordinary.”

This tea bowl and saucer with a transfer-printed Chinoiserie design in underglaze cobalt blue is an example of the Worcester porcelain that would have been imported to the colonies. Family tradition says that after Mary Lewis married John Phillips about 1779 in Philadelphia, she refused to host a tea party until her china could be ordered from England. Since then, it has descended through many generations along with an English silver teaspoon (B.2009.13).