- Museum number
- 2019.239
- Object
- Figure of Urania, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, 1750-2
- Description
- standing in a lemon-yellow veil and puce-washed lemon-yellow and white dress marking out a globe with a pair of dividers, resting on rockwork, on a square base. 6 in high.
- Materials
- soft-paste porcelain
- On display?
- No
Further description
- Simple name
- figurine/sculptural group
- Dimensions
- 15cm (h) x 7.3cm (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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