Camberly coffee saucer demitasse

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body first used in Britain in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a critical part. It is differentiated by supreme whiteness, translucency and strength. camberly coffee saucer/demitasse may be an example of this procedure.

The first use of bone ash in ceramics is attributed to Thomas Frye in the mid eighteenth century in which he used it to develop a type of soft-paste porcelain. In In the late 18th century, Josiah Spode carried on with further developments, and subsequently made it popular, by mixing it with kaolin, China stone and china clay to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

The production of bone china ordinarily makes use of a two stage firing process where the initial "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280