The splendid "Blind Earl" pattern is possibly the most immediately recognized of all eighteenth century Worcester patterns.  "Blind Earl" is marked by a spray of raised rose buds and leaves on the soft paste porcelain blank. In this example, the relief is naturalistically colored in green, red, pink, blue and yellow with additonal florals painted in among the sprays and randomly around the rim.  Worcester finishes their creation with a border of hand-gilded "C" scrolls emphasizing the molded, scalloped rim of the dessert dish.  . 

In Worcester Porcelain, 1750-1790, The Zorensky Collection, Simon Spero and John Sandon illustrate a similar piece (p. 193, plt. 208). They note that the pattern is only known in three blanks, a handled sweetmeat dish, a spoon tray and the dessert plate -- in this single size. They also note that while the pattern was originally introduced in the mid 1750's, this dessert dish shape was issued in the mid 1760's.  Early examples, such as this, are unmarked; the only marked examples date from the re-issue of the pattern in the Flight period, 1790's.

A note on the blind earl tale --  John Sandon in The Dictionary of Worcester Porcelain, Volume I, 1751-1851  (p. 71 and above) clarifies; The pattern refers to the Earl of Coventry who lost his sight in a hunting accident and asked the factory to make a design he could feel.  The date of the accident is given as 1770 or 1780.  Research on the family suggests there were two generations who suffered this fate, however none as early as the mid-1750's when the pattern was introduced.  A service in the pattern dating from around 1815 is still in existence at the family home, Croome Court.  Sandon speculates that it is with this service that the name came to be associated with the pattern.