tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[4] is proof of the readiness with which symbolism is read into a design which came into existence long before the symbol is appropriate. Writing in 1895 Edwin Atlee Barber says of the Lincoln China that the design for the decoration, selected after much consultation among officials at Washington, was added in New York by the importer. It consisted of a spirited rendering of the arms of the United States—the American eagle mounted on the national shield and beneath it the motto E Pluribus Unum. This design was engraved and then transferred to the china as an outline to be filled in with color. The border of the plate, a gold guilloche, or cable, of two strands entwined and, thus, mutually strengthening each other, was intended to signify the union of the North and South.[5] The same idea was meant to be conveyed in the central design: “Though clouds surround our Country, the sunlight is breaking through.” The explanation of the symbolism of the design, while appropriate for the Lincoln Administration, could hardly have been true for the china which was originally designed for Presidential use in 1853.

Tradition identifies the blanks on which the design of the Lincoln china was painted as being imported from the Haviland factory in Limoges, France. The original china bears no maker’s mark, however, as this was more than ten years before the Haviland factory started to mark their ware.[6] The earliest positive link of the Lincoln china to Haviland and Company seems to be an affidavit which Theodore R. Davis attached to a Lincoln plate in 1881 saying “This plate One of the Lincoln Set made by Haviland & Co. was used by President Garfield when upon his death bed. The plate was broken in bringing it from the President’s room and was given by Wm. Crump to Theo. R. Davis Sept. 1881.” The plate is now in the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is possible that Theodore Davis, a personal friend of Theodore Haviland, had derived directly from Mr. Haviland this manufacturer identification of the china which Haughwout decorated.

The official dinner service so delighted Mrs. Lincoln that she ordered a similar set for herself. On the personal service the initials “M. L.” were substituted for the arms of the United States as decoration. Mrs. Grimsley says “... this latter, I know, was not paid for by the district commissioner, as was most unkindly charged when it was stored away.”[7] It has been suggested that the personal china was paid for by a withdrawal of $1106.73 from the President’s account with the bank of Riggs and Co.