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The American Art Review Volume 2 Issue: 9 July 1881 Page: 115

Old English Porcelain By Thomas L. Winthrop

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SECOND ARTICLE

MOSSTNG CO. N.Y.
Fig. ii. – Bow.
FARNESE FLORA, MODELED BY J. BACON, R. A. (About 1/4)
SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM

1 See the account of the first Derby works given by Prof. Jewitt in the third chapter of the second volume of The Ceramic Art in Great Britain, published by Virtue & Co., 1878.

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THE china made at Bow (Figs. 11 and 12) is heavier and less fine than the Chelsea, which it imitated. Bacon, the sculptor, has the credit of modelling certain of the figures, some of which are fine and valuable. The works appear to have been in frequent pecuniary difficulties, and their career was even shorter than that of the Chelsea factory. I have rarely met with any very important objects of Bow manufacture, and consequently have seldom heard of any high prices being given for specimens. The earlier productions strongly resemble those of Chelsea, and unmarked pieces often cannot be classed with absolute certainty. The later productions, emulating the more finished styles of Sevres and Dresden, are generally failures. I am indisposed to quote any factory marks as belonging to Bow. The anchor and dagger are frequently claimed; but I think that Chelsea marks were not unusually employed when any at all were thought necessary, and that the anchor and dagger which are certainly to be found upon Bow were intended to make the articles pass current for Chelsea. Workmen's marks are not at all uncommon.

An obscure manufactory of porcelain was in existence at Derby as early as the year 1752, and as no marked pieces of Derby are known before the Chelsea and the Derby marks, as well as factories, were united, twenty or thirty years later, a good deal of unmarked Derby porcelain is to be accounted for. To this source many pieces must be ascribed, which are expected by dealers to do duty as Chelsea. Unmarked figures and uncertain specimens looking like an inferior quality of Chelsea are likely to have originated in this early Derby factory, which is recorded to have been first set up for the production of little models of animals and birds. The author of a handsome volume, Mr. John Haslem, himself one of the last survivors of a wonderfully talented series of painters at the old Derby works, states in a private letter to me "that it is improbable that any important pieces or services were allowed to leave the factory unmarked." But he refers unquestionably to the Derby factory as reorganized at the period of

The American Art Review Volume 2 Issue: 9 July 1881 Page: 116

Old English Porcelain By Thomas L. Winthrop

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