Fife player
ca. 1765
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain
Dimensions
figure: 10 × 4 in. (25.4 × 10.2 cm); pedestal: 3 3/8 × 5 1/2 in. (8.6 × 14 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Porcelain
Culture
British, Bow, London
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964
Accession Number
64.101.699a, b
Tags
Art Historical Context
This charming figure of a fife player, created around 1765 at the Bow Porcelain Factory in London, captures the lively spirit of mid-eighteenth-century British decorative arts. Standing just ten inches tall on its pedestal, the soft-paste porcelain sculpture depicts a musician in period attire, flute raised to his lips. Bow was among England’s earliest porcelain manufacturers, and its artists specialized in small-scale figures that brought music, theater, and everyday scenes into domestic interiors. Soft-paste porcelain allowed for delicate modeling and vibrant enamel colors, though it requir...
About the Artist
Bow Porcelain Factory · 1747–1776
The Bow Porcelain Factory, established around 1747 in East London near Bow and relocated by 1749 to "New Canton" east of the River Lea, emerged as one of England's pioneering soft-paste porcelain manufacturers, rivaling the Chelsea factory. Founded by merchant Edward Heylyn and Irish painter Thomas Frye, who secured key patents in 1744 and 1748–49 for using Cherokee kaolin and bone ash, the factor...