Bone china pottery
A smooth textured and extremely white firing pottery body. It's translucent and extremely strong. It is a unique pottery body recipe since it contains a high proportion of calcined cattle bone and is biscuit fired to about 1220C. It's a particular type of 'porcelain.'
Around fifty percent of the body recipe contains calcined cattle bones. Invented at the Spode factory in Stoke-on-Trent around 1800.
Around fifty percent of the body recipe contains calcined cattle bones. Invented at the Spode factory in Stoke-on-Trent around 1800.
A typical recipe contains about:
- 50% calcined cattle bone
- 25% china clay
- 25% china stone
- but recipes do vary.
The bone used at Spode was specifically the shins and knuckle bones of oxen. (Lower grades of bone china, not from Spode, may have used all or some bones from sheep or goats. But definitely not horses.) The bones are calcined at temperatures up to 1000 C before being ground to a fine powder and used in the bone china recipe. Bone china is extremely hard and intensely white.
Bone China: a Particularly English Porcelain
The Invention of Bone China: The Spode company, under Spode I and Spode II, is credited by potters, collectors, researchers and other experts with having perfected the bone china formula before 1800.
