Museum number
2019.252
Object
Figure of Water, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1760
Description
modelled as Neptune standing in an opaque-blue lined pink robe painted with purple flowers holding an upturned jar of water painted with two flowers, standing before a green and yellow scaled dolphin with a brown tail and face, on an ocal mound base enriched in blue. 7 1/2 in high.
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
20cm (h) x 9cm (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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