Cowboy snowman

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body initially used in the UK in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a major constituent. It is characterised by extremely high whiteness, strength and translucency. cowboy snowman may be an example of this process.

The first use of bone ash in ceramics is attributed to Thomas Frye in in the late 1740s in which he used it to make a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In As the 18th century drew to a close, Josiah Spode carried on with further developments, and duly popularised it, by mixing it with china clay, kaolin and China stone to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

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