Museum number
2019.95
Object
Figure of Matrimony, Bow Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, 1752-4
Description
in pink-lined yellow hat, yellow jacket, black bodice, pink sash, and a plain dress applied with flower-sprays with gilt centres and edged in gold, holding a gilt and brown birdcage, standing beside a green rockwork fountain with blue water, with a sheep recumbent at her side, on a scroll-moulded base enriched in green. 9 1/2 in high.
Materials
soft-paste porcelain
On display?
No

Further description

Simple name
figurine/sculptural group
Dimensions
24.4cm (h) x 13.5cm (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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