bowl
- Museum number
- Franks.125
- Description
-
Bowl and cover, porcelain, with two-handles, glazed, decorated with landscapes scratched with a diamond-point tool and filled-in with lamp black or charcoal; on the bowl a bird seated in a tree with fruit on the ground, on the other side a beehive(?) in a landscape with a ruin; gnarled handles with stems of applied flowers springing from the terminals; maker's mark; inside of rim unglazed; cover has four landscape scenes in the same manner as the bowl and a knop in the form of an applied bud and leaf.
- Production date
-
1750-60 (made)
-
1750-1774 (decoration)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 12.90 centimetres (with cover, incl finial)
-
Width: 17.30 centimetres (with handles)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Canon August Otto Ernst von dem Busch of Hildesheim (1704-1779) in Lower Saxony, North Germany, specialized in decorating porcelain in this distinctive technique. The designs were incised through the glaze with a diamond-tipped tool, and then he rubbed lamp black or charcoal into the incisions. Lamp black or soot was a pigment made from carbon derived from burning vegetable matter or mineral substances. The pieces were not intended for use, as the pigment would wash away if soaked. The porcelain was purchased as blanks, perhaps factory seconds, and typically of much older design. He usually signed and dated his work, which helps to establish that he was active between 1745 and 1774, as a tureen in the Hans Syz Collection, in the National Museum of American History, is signed “Busch 1774.”
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Acquisition notes
- The Asian ceramics donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks were recorded in a sequence on index cards (known as the ‘Franks Index Cards’), held in the Dept of Asia.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- Franks.125
