Black aves covered veg tureen

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body first produced in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an essential constituent. It is characterized by extremely high whiteness, strength and translucency. black aves covered veg tureen may be an example of this process.

The first use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in seventeen-forty-eight in which he used it to develop a type of soft-paste porcelain. In Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Josiah Spode carried on with further developments, and duly popularized it, by mixing it with china clay, kaolin and China stone to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

The manufacture of bone china generally involves a 2 stage firing process where the initial "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280