The Bow porcelain factory (active c. 1747–64 and closed in 1776) was an emulative rival of the

Chelsea porcelain factory Chelsea porcelain is the porcelain made by the Chelsea porcelain manufactory, the first important porcelain manufactory in England, established around 1743–45, and operating independently until 1770, when it was merged with Derby porcelain. ...

in the manufacture of early

soft-paste porcelain Soft-paste porcelain (sometimes simply "soft paste", or "artificial porcelain") is a type of ceramic material in pottery, usually accepted as a type of porcelain. It is weaker than "true" hard-paste porcelain, and does not require either the hig ...

in Great Britain. The two London factories were the first in England. It was originally located near Bow, in what is now the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

, but by 1749 it had moved to "New Canton", sited east of the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of t ...

, and then in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, now in the

London Borough of Newham The London Borough of Newham is a London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of West Ham and East Ham, authorities that were both abolished by the s ...

. Designs imitated imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains and the wares being produced at Chelsea, at the other end of London. From about 1753,

Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrecht ...

figures were copied, both directly and indirectly through Chelsea. Quality was notoriously uneven; the warm, creamy body of Bow porcelains is glassy and the glaze tends towards ivory. The paste included

bone ash Bone ash is a white material produced by the calcination of bones. Typical bone ash consists of about 55.82% calcium oxide, 42.39% phosphorus pentoxide, and 1.79% water. The exact composition of these compounds varies depending upon the type of bon ...

, and Bow figures were made by pressing the paste into moulds, rather than the

slipcasting Slip casting, or slipcasting, is a ceramic forming technique for pottery and other ceramics, especially for shapes not easily made on a wheel. In this method, a liquid clay body slip (usually mixed in a blunger) is poured into plaster mo ...

used at Chelsea. Bow appears to have been the largest English factory of its period. After about 1760, quality declined, as more English factories opened, and the dependence on Chelsea models increased, perhaps aided by an influx of Chelsea workers after 1763, as production there decreased. Both Bow and Chelsea catered for the luxury end of the market. One of the earliest records is in the Pelham Papers, the private accounts of the Duchess of Newcastle, showing the Duchess 'Pd. For China made at Bowe £3.0.0.' Bow also produced a good deal of cheaper sprigged tableware in white, with the

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

decoration applied in strips after the main body is formed. There are

blue and white porcelain "Blue and white pottery" () covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by sten ...

tablewares with floral

underglaze Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...

decoration imitating Chinese wares.

Japanese export porcelain Japanese export porcelain includes a wide range of porcelain that was made and decorated in Japan primarily for export to Europe and later to North America, with significant quantities going to south and southeastern Asian markets. Production for ...

in the

Kakiemon is a style of Japanese porcelain, with overglaze decoration called "enameled" ceramics. It was originally produced at the factories around Arita, in Japan's Hizen province (today, Saga Prefecture) from the Edo period's mid-17th century onwards ...

style was popular at Bow, as at Chelsea and continental factories, especially a design featuring partridges for tableware. The style of large bold "botanical" designs for flat pieces, derived from botanical book illustrations, were borrowed from Chelsea, and for smaller European flowers Bow had a distinctive style with similarities to French

Mennecy-Villeroy porcelain Mennecy-Villeroy porcelain (or Mennecy porcelain) is a French soft-paste porcelain from the manufactory established under the patronage of Louis-François-Anne de Neufville, duc de Villeroy (1695–1766) and — from 1748 — housed in outbuildin ...

that is "remarkably soft and delicate", though only seen on more expensive pieces.

Wares

The chaser and enamellist

George Michael Moser George Michael Moser (17 January 1706 – 24 January 1783) was a renowned artist and enameller of the 18th century, father of celebrated floral painter Mary Moser, and, with his daughter, among the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1 ...

, a key figure in the English

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

and a founder of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

, modelled for Bow, the sculptor

Joseph Nollekens Joseph Nollekens R.A. (11 August 1737 – 23 April 1823) was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century. Life Nollekens was born on 11 August 1737 at 28 Dean Street, Soho, London, ...

was told years later; the sculptor John Bacon may have modelled for Bow in his youth. The large white figure of the ''Farnese Flora'', a high point in the Bow production, was taken, it has been suggested, from a terracotta by

Michael Rysbrack Johannes Michel or John Michael Rysbrack, original name Jan Michiel Rijsbrack, often referred to simply as Michael Rysbrack (24 June 1694 – 8 January 1770), was an 18th-century Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England where h ...

. A pair of Bow figures of

Kitty Clive Catherine Clive (née Raftor; 5 November 1711 – 6 December 1785) Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive (1711-1785, active 1728-1769) was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English ...

and Henry Woodward as "the Fine Lady" and 'the Fine Gentleman" in

David Garrick David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Sa ...

's mythological burlesque ''Lethe'', 1750–52 "are probably the earliest full-length portrait figures in English porcelain"; Some figures bear the incised date 1750, the earliest dates on Bow porcelain. Some were enamelled by

William Duesbury William Duesbury (1725–1786) was an English enameller, in the sense of a painter of porcelain, who became an important porcelain entrepreneur, founder of the Royal Crown Derby and owner of porcelain factories at Bow, Chelsea, Derby and Lo ...

. Some Bow figures were imitated from Chelsea models, but many more from Meissen. The largest figures are of General

James Wolfe James Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms and, as a Major-general (United Kingdom), major general, remembered chiefly for his victory in 1759 over the Kingdom of France, French ...

and the Marquess of Granby, no doubt to celebrate their victories in the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754� ...

, respectively in 1759 and 1760–62. Granby is 14 1/2 inches high. Most factories copied from other porcelain, book illustrations for animals and plants, and prints for people, but a note in the Bowcocke papers to buy a

partridge A partridge is a medium-sized Galliformes, galliform bird in any of several genera, with a wide Indigenous (ecology), native distribution throughout parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Several species have been introduced to the Americas. They a ...

"dead or alive" suggests some modelling, or at least colouring, from real models was undertaken. Bow porcelain adopted the newly invented technique of

transfer printing Transfer printing is a method of decorating pottery or other materials using an engraved copper or steel plate from which a monochrome print on paper is taken which is then transferred by pressing onto the ceramic piece. Fleming, John & Hugh H ...

from Battersea enamels in the later 1750s, although it "was never well-established as a mode of decoration", and sometimes mixed with painting on a single piece. As with other factories, some figures were apparently simply painted, rather than enamelled (followed by a second firing). The paint on these will normally have become damaged over the years, until the remainder was scraped off to give a plain white glazed figure. Duesbury's account book distinguishes between figures that are "painted" and "enhamild".

History

Early patents applied for by

Thomas Frye Thomas Frye (c. 1710 – 3 April 1762) was an Anglo-Irish artist, best known for his portraits in oil and pastel, including some miniatures and his early mezzotint engravings. He was also the patentee of the Bow porcelain factory, London, ...

and his silent partner

Edward Heylyn Edward Heylyn (1695 – April 10, 1765) was a merchant and entrepreneur who was one of the founders of the Bow porcelain factory. The Heylyn family originally came from North Wales. Heylyn was the third son of John Heylyn, a saddler of London who ...

in December 1744 (enrolled 1745) and a totally different patent of 1 November 1748 (enrolled March 1749), both apparently intended broadly to cover the uses of

kaolin Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral ...

, were traditionally believed not to have resulted in any actual manufacture before about 1749, though Frye's published epitaph claimed he was "the inventor and first manufacturer of porcelain in England." "Heylyn and Frye do not appear to have had a factory of their own, but probably carried on their experiments at a factory already existing at Bow, having first secured the services of a well-skilled workman whose name has not been preserved, and who may have been the real inventor of English porcelain," a writer noted in 1911. But although the scale of production hardly amounts to a successful commercial enterprise, in recent years scientific analysis of various pieces, some excavated, that do not fit the traditional narrative of the earliest days of English porcelain, have suggested to some researchers that not only was there earlier production of porcelain, but that one formula produced the earliest

hard-paste porcelain Hard-paste porcelain, sometimes "true porcelain", is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature, usually around 1400 °C. It was first made in China a ...

made in England, some two decades before

Plymouth porcelain Plymouth porcelain was the first English hard paste porcelain, made in the county of Devon from 1768 to 1770. After two years in Plymouth the factory moved to Bristol in 1770, where it operated until 1781, when it was sold and moved to Staffordsh ...

The earliest Bow porcelains are of soft-paste incorporating

, forming a phosphatic body that was a precursor of

bone china Bone china is a type of ceramic that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phospha ...

. By 1749–1750 the business had moved from Bow to 'New Canton', a new factory on the Essex side of the River Lea, close to Bow Bridge, just west of Stratford High Street and beside Bow Back River. This move is evidenced by inkstands at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and at the

Museum of Royal Worcester The Museum of Royal Worcester (formerly ''Worcester Porcelain Museum'' and ''Dyson Perrins Museum'') is a ceramics museum located in the Royal Worcester porcelain factory's former site in Worcester, England. Overview The museum houses the wo ...

bearing the year 1750 and the inscription "Made at New Canton". Another example in the

Gardiner Museum The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (commonly shortened to the Gardiner Museum) is a ceramics museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is situated within University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The museum b ...

, Toronto is illustrated here. Also by 1750 Frye was serving as manager of the factory, under new owners, John Crowther and Weatherby. In 1753 they were advertising in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

for painters and a modeller. Sources for the early history of the Bow manufactory were collected by

Lady Charlotte Guest Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest (née Bertie; 19 May 1812 – 15 January 1895), later Lady Charlotte Schreiber, was an English aristocrat who is best known as the first publisher in modern print format of the '' Mabinogion'', the earliest prose l ...

in memoranda, diaries, and notebooks, including the diary, account books and other papers of John Bowcocke (d. 1765), who was employed in the works as a commercial manager and traveller. About 1758, the manufactory's high point, 300 persons were employed, 90 of whom were painters, all under one roof. "An account of the business returns for a period of five years shows that the cash receipts, which were £6,573 in 1750–51, increased steadily from year to year, and had reached £11,229 in 1755. The total amount of sales in 1754 realized £18,115." The firm had a retail shop in Cornhill and a warehouse at St Katharine's near the

Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

, though a West End shop that was opened in 1757 in the Terrace in St. James's Street closed the following year. The part-owner Weatherby died in 1762 and his partner Crowther was listed as bankrupt the following year. Three sales dispersed his effects in March and May 1764. Though Crowther continued in business in a small way, in 1776 what remained of the Bow factory was sold for a small sum to

, and all the moulds and implements were transferred to Derby: see

. There are hints in the history that much of the decoration, especially the overglaze enamelling, may have been done outside the factory, as was quite a common practice at this date. Newham's Heritage Service owns and curates a significant collection of items from the factory as well as from archaeological digs on the "New Canton" site in 1969. The New Canton site was also excavated in 1867 (discovering kiln wasters which were tested by a chemist at the direction of Lady Charlotte Schreiber) whilst another dig occurred in 1921 on the opposite side of the High Street.

Marks

No consistent factory marks were used at Bow, but there are a confusing number of marks that appear on some pieces or at some period, especially an anchor and dagger in the 1760s. Various suggestions have been made as to the meaning of other marks and letters that sometimes appear, with attempts to relate them to the names of possible modellers and other theories.

Gallery

File:Henry Woodward MET ES2025.jpg, The actor Henry Woodward in character, 1750. File:Kitty Clive MET ES2026.jpg,

, c. 1750 Image:Bowvanda.jpg, Figure following a Meissen model, about 1754 Image:Bow Porcelain Factory - Lady Falconer - c1755.jpg, A Lady Falconer - Bow Porcelain Factory - circa 1755 File:Mug MET DP23011 (cropped).jpg, Mug with sprigged Chinese-style plum-blossom decoration, an example of Bow's cheaper wares. Compare a Chinese beaker of the previous century File:Pair of botanical plates, plate 1, c. 1756-1760, Bow Porcelain Works, bone-ash soft-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC01055.JPG, "Botanical" plate, c. 1756-1760, imitating Chelsea File:Dish MET SF1995 268 13.jpg, Dish in

blue, in a Chinese style Image:Bow Porcelain Factory - Flora - c1762.jpg, Flora - Bow Porcelain Factory - circa 1762 File:Bow porcelain factory, due candelieri con giardiniere e giardiniera, londra 1765 ca.jpg, Pair of "shepherd" candlesticks, 1765-70 File:Bow Porcelain Birmingham Museum (cropped).jpg, Display at

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...

Notes

References

*Adam, Elizabeth and David Redstone, ''Bow Porcelain'' (London: Faber & Faber Monographs on Pottery & Porcelain) (1981) 1991
Museum of London Bow porcelain illustrated
*Bradshaw, Peter ''Bow Porcelain Figures circa 1748–1774'' (London: Barrie & Jenkins) 1992. *Gabszewicz, Anton, with Geoffrey Freeman. ''Bow Porcelain, The Collection formed by Geoffrey Freeman'' (Lund Humphries, 1982) *Gabszewicz, Anton, ''Made at New Canton: Bow Porcelain from the Collection of the

'' (London: English Ceramic Circle) 2000 *Honey, W.B., ''Old English Porcelain'', 1977 (3rd edn.), Faber and Faber, *'Industries: Pottery: Bow porcelain', in: ''A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2: General; Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton'' (1911), pp. 146–50
Retrieved 17 May 2007.
*Lippert, Catherine Beth, ''Eighteenth-century English Porcelain in the Collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art'', 1987, Indianapolis Museum of Art/Indiana University Press, , 9780936260129
google books
*Mallet, J.V.G. "Rococo in English ceramics" in: ''Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England'' (Victoria and Albert Museum), exhibition catalogue 1984. *Spero, Simon, in Battie, David, ed., ''Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Porcelain'', 1990, Conran Octopus. {{ISBN, 1850292515 *Tait, Hugh, "Bow porcelain" in: R.J. Charleston, ed. ''British Porcelain 1745–1850'' (London: Benn) 1965 * Daniels, Pat. " Bow Porcelain 1730–1747. Including the Participation of the Royal Society, Andrew Duche and the American Contribution" 2007. 364 pp. 48 colour and 51 b/w illustrations.

External links

''Industries: Pottery: Bow porcelain'', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2: General; Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton (1911), pp. 146–50Newhamstory.com collectionBow Porcelain
History, Research, Photos, Talks and Downloads Ceramics manufacturers of England Culture in London History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets History of the London Borough of Newham British porcelain Stratford, London