Sandon sauce boat

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body initially used in Great Britain in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an important constituent. It is characterized by extreme whiteness, strength and translucency. sandon sauce boat may be an example of this procedure.

The first use of bone ash in ceramics is associated with Thomas Frye in seventeen-forty-eight in which he used it to introduce a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In At the close of the 18th century, Josiah Spode continued with further developments, and subsequently made it popular, by mixing it with china clay, China stone and kaolin to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

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