Scaramouche and Isabella
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain
Dimensions
Overall (confirmed): 7 × 6 13/16 × 6 in. (17.8 × 17.3 × 15.2 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
64.101.689
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Scaramouche and Isabella** ca. 1748 Bow Porcelain Factory, after designs by Charles Nicolas Cochin I and Antoine Watteau Soft-paste porcelain The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Step into the whimsical world of 18th-century British porcelain with this charming figurine group from the Bow Porcelain Factory in London. Crafted around 1748, *Scaramouche and Isabella* captures two iconic characters from the Italian *commedia dell'arte* tradition—Scaramouche, the boastful swordsman-clown, and Isabella, the clever ingenue. Modeled in delicate soft-paste porcelain, a prized English i...
About the Artist
Bow Porcelain Factory|Charles Nicolas Cochin I|Antoine Watteau · 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...