Floating along from the jungle book

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body first developed in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an essential constituent. It is characterized by brilliant whiteness, translucency and strength. floating along from the jungle book may be an example of this process.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is credited to Thomas Frye in 1748 in which he used it to develop a type of soft-paste porcelain. In Towards the end of the 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and subsequently popularized it, by combining it with china clay, China stone and kaolin to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

Bone china production generally involves a 2 stage firing where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280