Valencia teapot

Bone china

Bone china is a kind of porcelain body initially produced in England in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is a critical constituent. It is characterised by high whiteness, translucency and strength. valencia teapot may be an example of this procedure.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is attributed to Thomas Frye in the mid eighteenth century in which he used it to introduce a type of soft-paste porcelain. In In the late 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and subsequently popularised it, by mixing it with kaolin, china clay and China stone to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

The manufacture of bone china routinely employs a 2 stage firing where the first "biscuit" is fired without a glaze at 1280