Description:
One of two English soft-paste porcelain chimney ornaments of a bouquet of flowers in green, pink, purple, blue, and yellow set against a wide bocage of leaves and a two-toned pink bow tied around the stems modelled to form a tripod base, which is only finished on one side and was probably a mantelpiece or shelf decoration. The Bow Porcelain Works (c.1748-1776) was established in a heavily industrialized district east of London, known as Stratford-le-Bow, which Bow management called "the New Canton" and built their factory to look like a "hong" or foreign factory of the British East India Company. The porcelain factory viewed Chinese export porcelains as their main competition and sought to imitate them as closely as possible with much of their output decorated in underglaze blue, mainly with Oriental-style scenic designs. Other factories also made these ornaments; "Flowers of all sorts, made exactly to Nature, allow'd by the best judges to be the finest in England" were advertised by the china manufactory at Longton Hall in 1757. Many of the flowers and leaves are restored. The English porcelain expert David Redstone confirmed this plate as Bow and dated it during his visit with members of the the English Ceramic Circle, May 14, 2010. There is a similar example is in the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art [70.32.1977]. which is catalogued as the Bow Porcelain Factory, c. 1745.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+63.184.1 |
