Bow paste is exceedingly hard, and the fracture when it is broken is close and compact. The pieces as a rule are very heavy for their size, but many of the cups and saucers are almost of egg-shell thinness. The colour is milky white. Should any of our readers be possessed of Bow china, they may ratify its origin by carefully examining it, if possible, under a magnifying glass. On scrutinising the blue pieces it will be found there is a peculiarity in the glaze, which arises in this manner. At that time blue was the only known colour that would bear the intense heat of the kiln. It was always painted on the biscuit before being dipped in the glaze. It is found that certain portions of the blue, however slight, are apt, while the glaze is in a fluid state, to spread over the surface, giving it a blue tinge. The other colours as well as the gold were painted over the glaze, and set in a kiln of lower temperature. Hence the blue, being under the glaze, is imperishable, and the other colours from frequent use get rubbed off.
We have given a number of marks used at Bow; we supplement that list by two others, one of which is exclusively composed of signatures actually used by Thomas Frye himself.
Although none of the ware unearthed at Bow was printed, yet printed ware did come from there. In all probability it was sent to Liverpool to have the transfer engravings, so much in vogue when Bow flourished, put on the china. As early as the year 1756 this was done, for certain entries appear in the Bow books: “One pint printed mug: a sett compleat of the second printed teas.” Or it is possible that they were sent to Battersea to be printed. It is not a far cry from Bow to Battersea. Transfer printing on enamel was in vogue at Battersea before 1755. Horace Walpole, writing to a friend in 1755, says, “I send you a trifling snuff-box, only as a sample of the new manufacture at Battersea, which is done with copper-plates.” But Battersea and Battersea enamel—that is another story.
Bow Factory
Various Signatures of Thomas Frye.
It is to be hoped that this “Chat” on old Bow china will have helped readers, to whom Bow is a name, to form some idea of what went on there more than a century ago. The china cabinet holds more mysteries within it than many a good housewife dreams of. It will be seen that the difficulties of china-collecting are legion. At the modern find at Bow, lovers of china ought to be grateful, for it enabled many vexed questions to be settled, but what is Bow and what is Chelsea still puzzles experts. In all probability Bow, Bristol, and another very much debated factory, Lowestoft, will continue to offer traps and snares and pitfalls for the unwary collector (or misshapen falsities attributed to them) till connoisseurs are no more and collecting days are done. The find in 1903 at Lowestoft is as important as the find at Bow, but it is exceedingly unlikely that any more facts will ever come to light respecting these old factories; every available source of information has been tapped and all that can be known concerning them is known. The potters who made the exquisite shapes, the artists who painted the roses on bowl and beaker, have long since departed with the roses of yester-years. Their life-work is scattered. Much of it, perhaps most of it, is gone for ever. Each cup and each dish of the long-dead artist is like “a good deed in a naughty world.” To-day, with a handful of facts, collectors and connoisseurs wrangle together over theories.
BOW CUP AND SAUCER.