Biltmore tea cup

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body originally developed in Britain in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a major part. It is distinguish by brilliant whiteness, strength and translucency. biltmore tea cup may be an example of this procedure.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in seventeen-forty-eight in which he used it to develop a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In At the close of the 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and consequently made it popular, by mixing it with china clay, kaolin and China stone to compete against the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

The manufacture of bone china consistently employs a two stage firing process where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280