Wildflowers tea saucer

Bone china

Bone china is a type of porcelain body originally produced in Britain in which calcined ox bone, bone ash, is an important constituent. It is distinguish by high whiteness, translucency and strength. wildflowers tea saucer may be an example of this process.

The initial use of bone ash in ceramics is attributed to Thomas Frye in the mid eighteenth century in which he used it to develop a kind of soft-paste porcelain. In Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Josiah Spode carried on with further developments, and consequently made it popular, by combining it with kaolin, China stone and china clay to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.

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

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