Museum number
2019.200
Object
Africa from set of four figures of the Continents, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1765
Description
Europe as Minerva in gilt scale-pattern cuirass and puce-lined robes with a shield at her side, Asia in flowered robe holding a jar, America as a Red Indian in feathered headdress and chiton with a crocodile at his feet, and Africa as a negress scantily draped in a flowered robe with an iron-red sash, a lion at her feet, all standing before flower-encrusted tree-stumps on pierced square spreading socles enriched in gilding. Europe with iron-red anchor and dagger mark at back. 5 1/2 in high.
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
13.5cm (h) x 6.5cm (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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