Bernard Leach’s little raku plate draws together his interests in ceramic history, his reading matter, his ‘philosophising’ and his aspirations as a graphic artist, extolled since he was a child of five or six, by incessant drawing; and by 1917, the year the plate was made, by some ten years as an etcher. Line as well as words are crucial to the plate. Leach drew pots throughout his life: sketches for work that he might make one day; doodles in the margins of a long committee meeting; speedy-yet-alive depictions of ceramics that held his attention, whether a celebrated museum work or a dish seen on his lunch table.