ink-pot

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Object Type: ink-pot
Museum number: 1887,0307,I.61
Description: Inkpot; soft-paste porcelain; thickly potted; cylindrical with raised rim round well and five pen-holes; painted in green, blue, pink, yellow, purple, orange, green and brown with 'banded hedge' pattern and group of stylised oriental flowers; inscription on top between two bands of stylised ornament in pink; flat base with several small splashes of glaze.
Producer name: Factory of: Bow Porcelain Factory
School/style: Oriental style
Production date: 1750
Production place: Factory in: New Canton (historic)
Materials: porcelain (soft-paste)
Technique: glazed; painted
Dimensions: Diameter: 8.30 centimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: Dawson 1987 In his account of the Bow factory written on the inside of the cardboard box made for the Craft bowl (Porcelain Cat. I 62) and dated 1790 Thomas Craft stated 'the Model of the Building was taken from that at Canton in China' (the full transcription is given in the Bow Exhibition Catalogue, 1959, no. 112). The name 'New Canton' continued in use in 1751, as attested by a dated inkpot in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and probably for several years longer on the evidence of a 'weekly account of bisket ware made at New Canton' dated 1754, which was quoted by Llewellynn Jewitt in 'The Ceramic Art of Great Britain', London, 1878, Vol. I, p. 208. Two other coloured Bow inkpots dated 1750 are known: one in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, the other in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Literature: H. Tait, 'The Bow Factory under Alderman Arnold and Thomas Frye (1747-1759)' Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, Vol. 5, part 4 (1963), pl. 189b and p. 213.
Bibliographic references: Burton 1902 / A History of and Description of English Porcelain (pl. ix, p. 61); Hobson 1904 / A Guide to the English Pottery and Porcelain in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities (p. 94, fig. 115); Hobson 1905 / Catalogue of the collection of English Porcelain in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum. (I61); Chaffers 1912 / Marks and Monograms on European and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain (p. 917); Hannover 1925 / Pottery & Porcelain, a Handbook for Collectors III European Porcelain (fig. 764); Hurlbutt 1926 / Bow Porcelain (pl. 2(a)); Tait 1959a / Bow Porcelain 1744-1776, a special exhibition of documentary material to commemorate the bi-centenary of the retirement of Thomas Frye (9) (figs. 3 and 4); Honey, rev.Barrett, 1979 / Old English Porcelain, A Handbook for Collectors (pl.35A,B); Dawson 1987 / Rare and Documentary 18th Century English Porcelain from the British Museum (29)
Location: On display (G46/dc22)
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 1987 Jun 10-Jun 15, London, International Ceramics Fair and Seminar Ltd, 'International Ceramics Fair and Seminar' 1959/60 Oct-Apr, London, British Museum, 'Bow Porcelain 1744-1776', cat. compiled by H. Tait, no. 9
Subjects: flower
Acquisition name: Donated by: Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks
Acquisition date: 1887
Department: Britain, Europe and Prehistory
Registration number: 1887,0307,I.61

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