There is a famous punch-bowl in the British Museum which is above all the _pièce justificative_ of the Bow porcelain works. On the inside of the cover of the box in which it is preserved is a long inscription, signed at the foot by T. Craft, and with the date 1790.[227] Thomas Craft, formerly an enamel-painter at Bow, was probably at that time a very old man. This bowl, he tells us, was made at Bow about 1760, and painted by him ‘in what we used to call the old Japan taste, a taste at that time much esteemed by the then Duke of Argyle.’ This is interesting. Craft refers probably to the so-called ‘partridge and wheatsheaf’ style, and the duke was doubtless a collector of this ware, like his contemporaries at Chantilly and the Palais Royal. But the decoration of this bowl has unfortunately nothing Japanese about it, except to some degree in the colour of the enamels employed. The heavy wreaths made up of minute flowers, upon which Mr. Craft tells us that he expended two dwts. of gold and about a fortnight of his time, take their inspiration rather from Meissen. (Compare the wreaths, PL. XLV. 2.) The works, he continues, which employed ninety painters and about two hundred turners, throwers, etc.,[228] had now, in 1790, ‘like Shakespeare’s cloud-capt towers, etc.,’ shared the fate of ‘the famous cities of Troy, Carthage, etc.’ The site was occupied by a manufactory of turpentine and some small tenements. Mr. Craft, however, tells us that he never used this punch-bowl _but in particular respect of his company_, and he hopes that those to whom it may pass may be equally abstemious. It is at present in the charge of the trustees of the British Museum. Many of the more elaborate figures and highly finished vases classed as ‘Bow’ in the Schreiber collection at South Kensington are now regarded by most specialists as the production, some of the Derby works, and others of the Chelsea and even the Worcester kilns. In view of the uncertainty and difference of opinion about the ware that is to be attributed to Bow, it is important to note the physical qualities of undoubted specimens. Professor Church lays stress upon the [Illustration: _PLATE XLV._ 1--CHELSEA, COLOURED ENAMELS 2--BOW, COLOURED ENAMELS]