Rondelay soup cereal bowl

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body initially developed in Britain in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a major part. It is distinguish by brilliant whiteness, translucency and strength. rondelay soup/cereal bowl may be an example of this procedure.

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

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

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