Porcelain in England in 1748 in order to compete with imported porcelain, bone china is now made worldwide. The English had read the letters of Jesuit missionary Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles, which described Chinese porcelain manufacturing secrets in detail. One writer has speculated that a misunderstanding of the text could possibly have been responsible for the first attempts to use bone-ash as an ingredient of English porcelain, although this is not supported by researchers and historians. In China, kaolin was sometimes described as forming the 'bones' of the paste, while the 'flesh' was provided by the refined rocks suitable for the porcelain
Van Tilburg Collection (1465-1487), Hongzhi (1488-1505), Zhengde (1506-1521), Jiajing (1522-1566) and Wanli (1573-1619) wares are found in the Collection. Noteworthy Kangxi (1662-1722) and Qianlong (1736-1795) pieces are the large blue-and-white porcelain chargers, the underglaze red pots and blue-and-white ritual stand with two side vases. There are numerous polychrome Kangxi 'Famille verte' and Qianlong 'Famille rose' plates in the collection. The collection holds a pair of 'Famille noire' pots which belonged to the Kangxi Emperor. There are also a number of Imperial Japanese pieces in the collection, among them a blue-and-white Arita gendi with Arabian ormulo mouldings, an early 19th-century blue-and-white Arita charger decorated