Bernard Palissy, 1510-1590, the great Renaissance French potter, created a style of ceramic art that enjoyed widespread popularity in the sixteenth century, and was often imitated during his lifetime and for many years thereafter. Nearly 250 years after Palissy's death, Charles-Jean Avisseau, a middle-aged French ceramist, rediscovered the lost secrets of Palissy which energized a revivalist movement that would last until the beginning of the twentieth century, Coiled vipers, slinking lizards, scaly fish, and water flora amid a realistic pond setting—these characteristic Palissy images created in high-relief ceramics and painted as in nature can be found in many of the world's great museums. Interest in Palissy peaked during the nineteenth-century Victorian era, then waned until the mid-1980s, when his Parisian workshop along with thousands of fragments were uncovered during excavations of the Louvre. Interest surged again in 1990 upon the 400th anniversary of his death. In 1996, certain fragments sparked theories that Palissy might have created the mysterious Saint-Porchaire ceramics (see Glossary and Articles) of which fewer than 100 pieces are known. In the same year two major books were published on (1) the life of Bernard Palissy, and (2) on nineteenth-century Palissy ware (see Books on Palissy Ware).

SIXTEENTH CENTURY Surrounded by controversy both during his life and since, Bernard Palissy has been the subject of numerous writings, including his own. During the past 200 years, historians have questioned his legendary accomplishments in a variety of scientific fields, but there is little doubt that his discoveries in lead-based ceramics alone would have propelled him to the height of his profession and assured his prominence in decorative arts history. The most recent publication on the life of Bernard Palissy - artisan to kings, writer, savant, philosopher, lecturer, naturalist, religionist, scientist, and discoverer - suggests that he was born in 1510 in the small town of Agen, approximately eighty-five miles southeast of Bordeaux, France. Palissy's parentage and early years are obscure. His father was probably an artisan because Palissy was able to draw and paint, skills that were often passed from father to son. A talented student, Palissy learned the arts of portraiture and stained-glass painting as well as cartography and possibly glassmaking. In his late teens, perhaps around 1528, Palissy left Agen to travel, primarily in southwestern France, where he earned his living by means of the trades he had learned in Agen.

NINETEENTH CENTURY The most important figure in the nineteenth-century revivalist movement of the art of Bernard Palissy and founder of the School of Tours was Charles-Jean Avisseau. His determination and skill led to the discovery in 1843 of Palissy's lost secrets for glazing and enamelling, which created a new enthusiasm for ceramic rustic ware that endured for almost fifty years. His work influenced scores of ceramists across France and well beyond its borders. Among Avisseau's principal disciples in Tours were his son and grandson, Edouard Avisseau and Edouard-Léon Deschamps-Avisseau; his brother-in-law, Joseph Landais, and his son and grandson, Charles-Joseph Landais and Alexandre-Joseph Landais; Léon Brard; and, Auguste Chauvigné. In 1851, Victor Barbizet (a Burgundy-area ceramist) and his family moved to Paris where along with his brother-in-law and son, established a ceramics workshop specializing in mass-produced Palissy ware. He is credited with founding the School of Paris which included a number of followers such as Thomas-Victor Sergent, Georges Pull, and François Maurice. Other ceramists pursued the Palissy tradition from more distant locations in France including the brothers Jean-Baptiste and Emile Gambut from Beaune; Jules Lesme from Limoges; and, Alfred Renoleau from Angoulême (western France). Additionally, the most important French faience factories, such as Choisy-le-Roi, Sarreguemines, Lunéville, Longchamps, and Onnaing included commercial quantities of Palissy ware as part of their repertoire. In France alone, more than twenty-five individual ceramic artists, 150 or more apprentices, scores of unknown makers whose works bear no mark, and countless factory employees produced Palissy ware for nearly fifty years. The nineteenth-century Palissy ware movement also spread to other countries as well, most notably Portugal and England.