Bernard Palissy, probably born in Saint-Avit (hamlet of Lacapelle-Biron) or in Agen (according to Louis Audiat) around 1510 and died in Paris, at the Bastille in 1589 or 1590, is a potter, enameler, painter, craftsman French glassmaker, writer and scholar1. It belongs to the French Renaissance School.

Most of his work is exhibited at the National Renaissance Museum at Château d'Écouen.

Self-taught from a modest family – his father was a glass painter – he boasted of speaking “neither Greek nor Latin”.

In 1539, after learning his father's trade and traveling, he settled in Saintes, married, and began his famous research on white enamel, which he gradually developed from 1545.

In 1546, he converted to Protestantism2,3. Protected successively by the Pons family, by Michelle de Saubonne, then Antoinette d'Aubeterre, ladies of Soubise, he became friends with the preacher Philibert Hamelin. In 1548, he became the protégé of the constable Anne de Montmorency, whom he followed to Ecouen.

Around 1555, he stayed in Fontenay-le-Comte and became friends with the seneschal Michel Tiraqueau, son of the poet4.

In 1557, he resided again in Saintes, where his pastor was Charles de Clermont, known as La Fontaine; the latter, who succeeded Philibert Hamelin, a pastor trained in Geneva, would become the first pastor of Marennes5.

In 1559, the edict against the Protestants, signed in Écouen by Henri II, to whom Palissy had offered numerous works, led him to prison in Saintes. His incarceration raised a wave of protests, bringing together Louis I of Bourbon-Condé, Lord Guy de Chabot, Baron de Jarnac, Antoine de Pons, Count de la Rochefoucaud, François III.

In 1563, he was transferred to Bordeaux and his workshop was desecrated; he was saved from prison by the action of the Constable de Montmorency, his protector, who promptly presented a petition to the Queen Mother, and obtained from the King the order to release him6. Without him, Palissy would only have left prison to go to execution. The same year, he had his Real Recept printed in La Rochelle.

From the end of 1566 he worked on the creation of a “rustic cave” in Paris, first for the Constable, then for Catherine de Medici, at the Tuileries. Two of his sons help him in this work.

In 1572, protected by Catherine de Medici, he only survived Saint-Barthélemy by taking refuge in Sedan. Returning to Paris in 1574, he gave scientific courses there the following year and had posters put up at all crossroads to announce their start at Lent7. His conferences concern waters and fountains, metals, against alchemy, against drinking gold recommended by Roch le Baillif, for antimony, about the rainbow. His disciple was Guy Patin[Doubtful information].

In December 1586 he was arrested as a Huguenot, on the orders of the League and condemned to banishment in June 1587, but he remained in Paris.

Arrested again in May 1588, he was sentenced to death, appealed and saw his sentence commuted to life in prison. Imprisoned first in the Conciergerie, he died in the Bastille in 1589 (or 1590?), “of hunger, cold and mistreatment”.

He was married and the father of six children, three boys and three girls.
Ceramist

From 1530, this autodidact studied the technique of cooking enamels. “Painter on glass and earthenware”, a trade learned from his father, he composed numerous stained glass windows.

The discovery of a superbly white enameled ceramic bowl in the collection of a great lord caused him such surprise that he decided to discover the secret of its manufacture. Some historians have speculated that this piece of white ceramic was Italian majolica. This supposition, however, does not stand up to in-depth examination because earthenware with a white tin coating was widely distributed at the time of Palissy by the pottery centers of Spain, the Netherlands and even the South of France, and Palissy, which had already traveled during his tour of France as a journeyman glazier, had certainly already encountered examples.

More likely, Palissy had found a piece of Chinese porcelain, already highly prized by lovers of beautiful things. Ignoring its nature, its composition and its manufacturing processes, he then set about unraveling the secret of the composition of this white enamel which, it was said, was the source of the colors.

In the potteries near La Chapelle-des-Pots, he acquired the basics of traditional Saintonge pottery. From 1536 to 1556, he devoted twenty years of his life to trying to reproduce the glaze of the cup he had seen; Who doesn't know the story of Palissy, running out of wood, burning its tables and floors to get there [ref. necessary]?

It was in 1555, after twenty years of physical and moral ordeal, enduring the reproaches of his wife and the mockery of his neighbors, that he was able to cover his pottery with a speckled enamel: the only one that makes the true merit of his earthworks.

If, however, he failed to discover the secret of Chinese porcelain, he innovated by adapting to ceramics the taste for caves imported from Italy around the middle of the 16th century. His best-known pieces are vases, statuettes, basins, dishes, and various utensils that he calls his rustic figulines. These ceramics, evolution

19th century gave Palissy an imposing dimension and even initiated the birth of a true cult. His art is experiencing a prodigious revival of interest through his imitators such as Charles Avisseau and Auguste Chauvigné in Tours, Georges Pull in Paris, Alfred Renoleau in Angoulême, and through the interest of major European collectors.
Abroad, numerous productions are inspired by his exuberant naturalist style, such as the ceramics of António Alves Cunha (1856-1941) in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal).

For example, the collection of Baron de La Villestreux then included an oval “reptile dish” with green decoration on a marbled background (color lithograph by Lemercier, nd - arch. pers.) to compare with the dish dated 1550 and the basin reproduced on this page.
Repairs, copies and counterfeits

“The fame of Palissy's works made them subject to imitation and co