Biltmore cream soup cup

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body first used in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an essential part. It is characterised by brilliant whiteness, translucency and strength. biltmore cream soup cup may be an example of this procedure.

The first use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in in the late 1740s in which he used it to develop a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In At the close of the 18th century, Josiah Spode continued with further developments, and subsequently made it popular, by combining it with China stone, china clay and kaolin to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

The original elemental recipe of six parts bone ash, four parts china stone, and three and a half parts china clay still remains the standard English body.

Bone china production usually makes use of a 2 stage firing process where the initial "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280