page_title: Bone china
hierarchical_section_title: Bone china
caption_attribution_description: Britain Loves Wikipedia at the Victoria and Albert Museum Bone China Chocolate Cup English: Staffordshire, 1815-20 Bone china, painted in enamels and gilded Collection ID: 414-1899 This photo was taken as part of Britain Loves Wikipedia in February 2010 by David Jackson.
context_page_description: Bone china is a type of porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Bone china is the strongest of the porcelain or china ceramics, having very high mechanical and physical strength and chip resistance, and is known for its high levels of whiteness and translucency. Its high strength allows it to be produced in thinner cross-sections than other types of porcelain. Like stoneware it is vitrified, but is translucent due to differing mineral properties.
  In the mid-18th century, English potters had not succeeded in making hard-paste porcelain but found bone ash a useful addition to their soft-paste porcelain mixtures, giving strength. This became standard at the Bow porcelain factory in London, and spread to some other English factories. The modern product was developed by the Staffordshire potter Josiah Spode in the early 1790s.
context_section_description: Bone china is a type of porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Bone china is the strongest of the porcelain or china ceramics, having very high mechanical and physical strength and chip resistance, and is known for its high levels of whiteness and translucency. Its high strength allows it to be produced in thinner cross-sections than other types of porcelain.  Like stoneware it is vitrified, but is translucent due to differing mineral properties.
  In the mid-18th century, English potters had not succeeded in making hard-paste porcelain (as made in East Asia and Meissen porcelain) but found bone ash a useful addition to their soft-paste porcelain mixtures, giving strength.  This became standard at the Bow porcelain factory in London (operating from around 1747), and spread to some other English factories.  The modern product was developed by the Staffordshire potter Josiah Spode in the early 1790s.  Spode included kaolin, so his formula, sometimes called "Staffordshire bone-porcelain", was effectively hard-paste, but stronger, and versions were adopted by all the major English factories by around 1815.
  From its initial development and up to the latter part of the 20th century, bone china was almost exclusively an English product, with production being effectively localised in Stoke-on-Trent. Most major English firms made or still make it, including  Spode, Royal Crown Derby, Royal Doulton, and Wedgwood, Mintons.   In the 20th century it began to be made elsewhere, especially in USSR, Leningrad (ЛФЗ), China and Japan, and China is now the world's largest manufacturer. 
  In the UK, references to "china" or "porcelain" can refer to bone china, and "English porcelain" has been used as a term for it, both in the UK and around the world.
caption: Staffordshire bone china covered chocolate cup, with enamels and gilding, c. 1815–20, Victoria and Albert Museum
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "FE320,X835,C540", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery 6.0.6001.18000", "Image DateTime": "2010:03:05 23:56:23", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "322", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8930", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5440", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "39/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:02:27 17:02:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:02:27 17:02:15", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "163/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "93/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3264", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8106", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "-920"}