Bone china is traditionally attributed to Josiah Spode II (1754 – 1827) who introduced it in 1797. However, the development and use of bone china stretches further back through time to ancient China.

The Chinese are beloved to be the first people to create porcelain. This was a rudimentary, unsophisticated type of material that made its first appearance about the year 1000.  But it was approximately 400 years later that Chinese porcelain as we know it was imported into Europe.

From that time up until the early 18th century, many European pottery factories vied with each other to produce the first example of porcelain wares. Many experiments were made to discover the secret ingredients that created this new bright, hard material.

The earliest attempts are believed to have been made in Italy in the city of Florence during the late 16th century. These early chemist-alchemists tried mixing powdered glass with clay. Their goal was to try and reproduce the fine, translucent Chinese wares that so impressed the wealthy aristocracy.

The attempts continued in the 17th century at Rouen in France with varying degrees of success.  Eventually, it was the Meissen innovators of Saxony who managed to create the first European porcelain and this area then became a major centre for porcelain production.

For the ruler of Saxony, Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, the production of porcelain was not only a personal status symbol but it also led to great commercial wealth. The new porcelain was in much demand by the wealthy merchants and aristocracy.

So to maintain his monopoly and safeguard his new found wealth, Augustus passed a number of laws, with severe penalties, that forbade anyone revealing the secret ingredients and processes of porcelain production.

But in time the secret was revealed and a number of other factories sprang up throughout the European states producing porcelain of varying quality.

It is generally agreed that, up until the mid to late 18th century, the finest European porcelains were manufactured at the French factories of Chantilly, Mennecy. and St Cloud, Many commentators of the day waxed lyrical about the supreme quality of the French factories. And many collectors and connoisseurs still believe that the highest state of porcelain perfection was reached by the pieces produced at Vincennes and Sevres.

But these French porcelains were still considered as ‘soft paste’ porcelain produced by the addition of powdered glass to china clay; very similar to the technique used in the early Florentine porcelain.

However, for the complete story of bone china and porcelain some mention must be made of the efforts made by the English soft paste porcelain producers.

The term ‘soft paste porcelain’ was first introduced in 1742 by Thomas Briand who delivered a paper to the Royal Society on porcelain production. The first English factory to successfully produce soft paste porcelain, very much in the French tradition, was Chelsea. They too used the powdered glass formula to create their very fine, and now rare, porcelain pieces.

Incidentally, the two partners who established the famous Chelsea factory were Thomas Briand and Charles Gouyn, a renowned silver smith. They were both Huguenots and connected to the French town of St Cloud.

Early porcelain, or ‘bone china‘ as many still prefer to call it, is considered highly desirable by collectors of antiques and prices can be extremely high. But it is rare and difficult to source.