Museum number
2019.154
Object
Set of Four Figures Emblematic of The Elements (Water), Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1770
Description
modelled as gods and goddesses in flowered robes lined in puce or turquoise, Air as a nymph with an eagle, Earth holding a cornucopia and with a lion at her feet, Fire as a youth with a brazier of coals and Water as Neptune with an upturned jar and a dolphin, all standing on high scroll-moulded bases lightly enriched in gilding, anchor and dagger marks in iron-red to Air, Earth and Water. 11 in high.
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
29.6cm (h) x 11cm (w)
Founded in the mid-1740s, the Bow factory, located in Bow, now East London, was the first English manufacturer to make porcelain on a commercial scale. Bow porcelain was largely aimed at the middle-classes. Famous for its imitations of imported Chinese and Japanese porcelain, the factory also produced some of the earliest full-length figures in English porcelain. From the 1760s the quality declined and the factory closed around 1774. The factory’s legacy lives on as its use of bone ash in the manufacture of porcelain evolved into what we know as English bone china.

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