Museum number
2019.92
Object
Figure of a Pugilist, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, c.1765
Description
with a pale-blue scarf and grey hair, his cheeks enriched in iron-red, his arms raised and wearing red-striped pale-yellow breeches, his hat and clothes resting at his side, on a rockwork scroll-moulded base enriched in turquoise and gilding, anchor and dagger mark in iron-red, blue X mark. 6 1/2 in high
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
16.1cm (h) x 9.4cm (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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