PALISSY, IVle'st.', BERNARD (c.1510-S9). A celebrated French art potter, scholar, and au thor, born at La Chapelle Bison, near Agen (Lot et-Garonne). The son of a poor workman in glass. his education was limited, but by his own studious efforts he acquired a considerable knowledge in the natural sciences, besides geom etry, drawing, and painting, and extended it while traveling for a period throughout. France. in Flanders, and on the Rhine. In 1539 lie mar ried and settled at Saintes. where he practiced glass and portrait painting, at the same time carrying on the business of a land surveyor. An enameled cup of faience which he saw by chance inspired him with the resolution to discover the mode of producing white enamel. Neglecting all other labors, he confined himself to investiga tions and experiments for sixteen years. exhaust ing all his resources until. unable any longer to buy fuel, lie was reduced to the necessity of burning his furniture piece by piece, and finally the flooring of his rooms. Scoffed at by his neighbors, overwhelmed with reproaches by his wife. and besought by his starving family crying for food. he nevertheless persisted in the search, and at length his efforts were crowned with success. A few pieces adorned with figures of animals, colored to represent nature, sold for high prices, after which he became famous a ml was patronized and encouraged by the royal family and the nobility. who employed him to embellish their mansions with specimens of his art. An enthusiastic follower of the Huguenot cause, he was arrested in 1562 and imprisoned at Bordeaux, but was soon released by order of the King. who gave him a patent as inventor of 'figulines rustiques.' He removed to Paris about 1564, and set up his pottery-works on a plot of ground assigned to him near the Tuileries. There be worked and prospered for years. escap ing the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's under the protection of Queen Catharine (le' Medici. and
in 1575 began a course of lecture, on natural his tory and physics, which were attended by all the learned men of the day and made him prominent as a man of science. Many of his views of nature have been supported by subsequent discovery and investigation, and have made good his title to a very high rank among the natural philoso phers of the sixteenth century. On a fresh out burst of religious fanaticism in 1587, he was thrown into the Bastille as a heretic, and con demned to death, hut died before the sentence was carried out. The faience of Palissy is of a peculiar style. His figures and other orna ments are all executed in colored relief, the colors being usually bright, but not of great variety, blues. grays, and yellows prevailing. The most remarkable of his productions are the 'pieces rustiques,' dishes ornamented with cray fish. frogs, lizards, fishes, snakes, shells, and plants, admirably true to nature in form and color. Magnificent specimens of his work are in the Louvre, the Muse de Cluny. and at Sevres. A few may be seen in the South Ken sington and British museums, hut the Fountaine Collection at Narford Hall, England, is hardly equaled by any even in France. llis Wurrrs comp/Hes, edited by France (Paris, 1880). con taining also a most stirring autobiography, fully justify Lamartine's verdict assigning to Palissy a high position among French writers. For his life and work, consult Henry Morley (London, 1852). Audiat (Paris. 1868). Burty 1886), and Dupuy (ib,. 1S981: consult also: Delange and Bornenian, Monographic de Pecuere de Bernard Palissy (Paris. 1862), and Marryat, A History of Pottery and Porcelain (3d ed., aug mented, London, 1868).