Moonlight rose fruit saucer

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body first produced in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a critical constituent. It is characterised by brilliant whiteness, strength and translucency. moonlight rose fruit saucer may be an example of this procedure.

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

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

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