Bone china

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Bone china, Minton & Co, Stoke on Trent, England, About 1897, Transfer printed with enamel painting V&A Museum no. Circ.70-1970^[1] Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Bone china is a type of porcelain body first developed in Britain in which calcined cattle bone (bone ash) is a major component. It is characterised by high whiteness, translucency and strength. Production usually involves a two stage firing where the first, bisque, is without a glaze at 1280 °C (2336 °F), which gives a translucent product and then glaze, or glost, fired at a lower temperature below 1080 °C (1976 °F).

English manufacturers were keen to produce porcelain of the quality to be found in Chinese imports, but they had to go down a different route. The first use of bone ash in ceramics is attributed to Thomas Frye in 1748 to make a type of soft-paste porcelain, at his Bow China Works^[2]. In the late 18th century, Josiah Spode undertook further developments, and subsequently popularized it, by mixing it with kaolin and China stone to compete with the imported Oriental porcelain.