Real old willow tea saucer

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body initially used in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an important constituent. It is characterized by brilliant whiteness, strength and translucency. real old willow tea saucer may be an example of this process.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is assigned to Thomas Frye in seventeen-forty-eight in which he used it to make a type of soft-paste porcelain. In In the late 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and duly made it popular, by mixing it with kaolin, China stone and china clay 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 is still the standard English body.

The production of bone china mostly makes use of a 2 stage firing process where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280