Museum number
2019.77
Object
A Group of Figures Emblematic of Africa and Asia, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1762
Description
Africa as a negress in an elephant headdress, in green bodice and blue, yellow and pink dress with a lion at her feet, Asia in a yellow flowered dress holding an urn standing before a flowering tree-stump applied with yellow and blue flowers and leaves in two tones of green, on a shaped oval mound scroll-moulded base enriched in puce and blue. 5 1/4 in high
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
13.2cm (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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