Museum number
2019.237
Object
Figure of two monkeys, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1760
Description
modelled as a crouching monkey with red mouth, a young monkey on its back, both with their arms raised to their eyes, their coats in natural colours, on a circular mound base applied with a flower and three leaves. 2 3/4 in high
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
7.2cm (h) x 3.7cm (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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