PORTUGUESE PALISSY WARE
by Marshall P. Katz © 1998

Palissy ware derives its name from the great 16th-century French potter, Bernard Palissy (1510-1590), who not only pioneered lead-based, enameled ceramics (majolica), but popularized a rustic form of ceramic art that has endured to this day. Palissy's slinking lizards, coiled snakes, and scaly fish inspired a bevy of French artisans, beginning in 1843,1 to re-interpret his work, and energize a revival movement that would last until the end of the century.

A similar Portuguese movement began in 1853 in the small town of Caldas da Rainha (population 20,000) situated 60 miles north of Lisbon, when ceramist Manuel Cipriano Gomes Mafra purchased an existing pottery factory and produced Palissy-inspired wares. For the next 67 years, until 1920, at least 25 Caldas factories produced a variety of ceramic ware in the Palissy rustic tradition. Between 1853 and 1920, five major ceramists founded and sparked the Portuguese Palissy movement centered exclusively in Caldas da Rainha.

MANUEL CIPRIANO GOMES (1830-1905)
In 1850 a twenty-year-old, part-time waiter and potter from the nearby town of Mafra began work at a local Caldas ceramics factory which three years later he leased with a fellow worker. From the start Gomes adopted the Palissy style, but rendered it in his own interpretation. There are several reasons hypothesized, though none documented, why Gomes chose to emulate Palissy, but the most plausible was his captivation with a French Palissy ware plate purchased in Paris by a collector friend. Further indication of this explanation is the lack of evidence that any of the French and Portuguese ceramists ever knew one another or visited each other's countries, and the absence of written or oral narrative to suggest any form of cooperation or technology transfer between French and Portuguese.

Sometime during the mid-1850s, Gomes adopted the name "Mafra" after his home town and incorporated it in the mark "M. Mafra, Caldas, Portugal." Mafra's adaptations of Palissy ware differed markedly from his 16th-century predecessor. In his hands, the characteristic Palissy theme—life as found in a tranquil pond—gave way to images of a fierce struggle for survival, usually between snake and lizard. This subject became so popular that it was copied by nearly every subsequent 19th-century Caldas ceramist, and became the dominant output of many.

Mafra also innovated a new element into his design—musgo, or moss. As shown in the illustrations, Mafra often placed his creatures on abed of thick green moss, using a more than 2000-year-old Egyptian technique of pressing wet clay through a sieve.

Mafra introduced many technical as well as subject-matter innovations. He greatly enlarged the color palette, was the first to employ high-glaze mottled backgrounds of brown, or brown and green, and refined the jasper2 technique first developed by Bernard Palissy. Mafra is also credited with developing an export trade in ceramics from Caldas, still an important source of the town's revenues.

Mafra's renown did not escape the attention of King Fernando II, who both purchased and commissioned works for the royal collection. He dubbed the Mafra factory "Royal Supplier to the King" and even authorized use of the crown as part of the Mafra mark, probably in the early-to-mid-1860s. The Mafra factory employed 15 at its peak. Manuel Mafra retired in 1887 leaving control to his son, Eduardo, who in turn transferred management to others. Ten years later, in 1897, Manuel Mafra reassumed control but was unable to resuscitate the business, and the factory closed that same year. Mafra died on November 11, 1905.

JOSÉ ALVES CUNHA (fl. 1860-ca. 1885)
José Alves Cunha {also known as José Alves da Cunha), who established a small factory in Caldas da Rainha in 1860, was second only to Manuel Mafra in the number of works he produced during the decades of the 1860s and 1870s.

It is likely, though undocumented, that Cunha even worked for Mafra, because his work more closely resembles Mafra's than does the work of any other Caldas ceramist. Many works by Cunha and Mafra would be impossible to distinguish were it not for their respective marks. Cunha is best known for his rendition of the famous cabbage-leaf tea service with snake handles {not shown) taken from a latter eighteenth-century Portuguese design from the Royal Ceramics Factory in Lisbon. Cunha is believed to have retired in the mid-1880s. A mark bearing the inscription "José A. Cunha Sucessor, Caldas, Portugal" suggests the factory was continued by others.

JOSÉ FRANCISCO DE SOUSA (fl. 1860-ca. 1893)
José Francisco de Sousa, one of Caldas's more artistic makers of Palissy ware, acquired a factory in 1860 from another ceramist, António de Sousa Liso, who had founded it five years earlier. The factory was sold to de Sousa's son, José Augusto, and António Moreira da Câmara in 1893, and later leased exclusively to Câmara.

The works of José Francisco de Sousa are largely unrecognizable outside Portugal, because his predominant mark "JFS" in fancy script inside an oval, is illegible. However, this remarkable maker deserves broader renown for his diversified color palette and artistic rendering, and he is in our judgment, among the best Caldas ceramists.

RAFAEL BORDALO PINHEIRO (1846-1905)
The most famous and successful Portuguese ceramist and Palissy follower remains virtually unknown in the United States except in knowledgeable ceramics circles. Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro was born in Lisbon into a family of distinguished artists. He was one of nine children, many of whom carried on the family artistic tradition. At around the age of eleven, Rafael received his first lessons in drawing and modeling in his father's workshop, and three years later was enrolled at a nearby fine arts school.

In 1866, at age twenty Rafael married, but his dedication to drawing was so consuming that he even made sketches, watercolors, and charcoal drawings during his honeymoon. By 1870 his drawings had become full-scale political and social caricatures and were appearing in magazines and pamphlets.

He even exhibited with his father in 1868 and with his brother Columbano in 1874. At the same time, he continued drawing caricatures and cartoons, which began, to receive increasing public recognition.

In 1875, after co-publishing a short-lived magazine, Lanterna Mágica, Rafael was invited to Rio de Janeiro in August to direct a satirical magazine, O Mosquito. One year later he moved his family to Rio de Janeiro and, having enjoyed considerable success, remained four more years, purchased the magazine, and published booklets of political caricatures. In 1879 Pinheiro returned to Lisbon and continued publishing his political cartoons and satire to a receptive public.

It was his brother Feliciano's urging for partnership that drew Rafael to the full-time profession of ceramics at age thirty-seven. Feliciano had been a frequent visitor to the spa at Caldas da Rainha and an admirer of the local ceramics industry and beautiful countryside. Convinced that the pottery factories there were primitive and outmoded, Feliciano gathered a group of investors, and persuaded Rafael to lend his artistic talent to a modern enterprise. In October 1883 Feliciano drew plans for the new business to be known as Fábrica de Faianças das Caldas da Rainha (Faience Factory of Caldas da Rainha.)

In September 1884 the initial phase of the new factory was completed. Rafael assumed the artistic direction while his brother managed the plant. At first the factory concentrated its production on industrial products such as construction brick and commercial floor and wall tiles. By June 1885 the second phase of the factory was completed, permitting production of a full line of decorative and household tableware. The final phase, for producing large quantities of commercial tableware was not equipped until 1888.

Rafael threw himself into his work with such passion that the factory achieved high-quality production almost from the start. In 1885 the company exhibited at the Portugal Commercial Exhibition in Lisbon and conducted significant business. For the next several years, Rafael continued to oversee the factory's artistic direction, which employed fifty workers, and produced a prodigious number of works whose variety of colored glazes, intricate modeling, depth of color, and artistic design brought the ceramist fame. The works in which he represented crustaceans, batracians, and other sea life were influenced by two concurrent revival movements that had begun centuries earlier. The more important was Palissy ware, initiated by Manuel Mafra thirty years earlier, and to a lesser extent, the Manueline3 decorative style that dated to the reign of King Manuel I (1495-1521).

The sales of Palissy-inspired and Manueline-type ceramics, notwithstanding Rafael Pinheiro's extraordinary artistic gifts, could not generate enough revenue to overcome lagging sales of household ware and commercial tableware that were the mainstay of the business. By 1889, despite a very successful commercial exhibition in Oporto that same year, the factory needed another cash infusion. The Portuguese government granted a loan that staved off impending bankruptcy and enabled the company to exhibit at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition. The exhibition was a great success: Rafael Pinheiro received the Legion of Honor from French president, Sadi Carnot; the factory was awarded gold and silver medals; and the company received many orders, some paid in advance. Whether the orders were misplaced is not known, but none was ever delivered. Thus begun a final decline in the financial affairs of the enterprise, which Pinheiro was never able to reorganize. Throughout the rest of his career, the firm remained very undercapitalized.

During the period 1889 to 1899 Pinheiro's creative output was unabated. He created many of his greatest works, including, in 1889, a monumental eight-foot urn entitled Jar to Beethoven which is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. Perhaps his most compelling work in the style of Bernard Palissy is shown in illustration 1. This ceramic masterpiece, which was produced on multiple occasions beginning in 1893, is nearly four inches high and employs the verguinha4 technique of ceramic basket weaving. This highly realistic depiction of fish and leaves, both of which are artistically and exquisitely rendered in complementary, contrasting colors, represents the pinnacle of Pinheiro's Palissy-inspired repertoire.

Pinheiro retired to Lisbon from Caldas da Rainha in 1900, transferring total direction of the factory to his son, Manuel Gustavo Pinheiro. Rafael continued a number of artistic activities, including the sculpting of terra cotta busts. Pinheiro also took up publishing again, but died five years later.

MANUEL GUSTAVO PINHEIRO (1867-1920)
Manuel Gustavo Pinheiro was born in Lisbon in 1867, son of Rafael Bordalo and Elvira Pinheiro. A gifted artist, he probably moved to Caldas in the 1890s, where in 1900 he became artistic director of his father's factory. His position lasted only five years when the company was sold to others.

Three years later, in 1908, Manuel Gustavo, who was unable to secure financing for the old .factory , organized a new enterprise called Fábrica de Faianças Artísticas Bordalo Pinheiro "San Rafael," which he directed until his death in 1920. Manuel designed little in the Palissy spirit, but he continued producing Rafael Pinheiro's Palissy-inspired works and thereby sustained the Palissy tradition.

In 1922 a group of Caldas businessmen bought Manuel Gustavo Pinheiro's home and land, along with his father's and his original factory molds and casts. They erected a new factory (since rebuilt) on this site, which today employs 350 workers and exports 80 percent of its production, largely to the United States. The new company, called Faianças Artísticas Bordalo Pinheiro produces a variety of dinner and tableware. Nearby, the home of Manuel Gustavo has been preserved as a museum, where visitors can view the original works and molds of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro. The Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum in Lisbon was dedicated to this great Portuguese ceramist's memory in 1924. A former villa, with approximately ten thousand square feet of exhibition space, it contains an extensive collection of Rafael's works from his political cartoons and caricatures to his monumental ceramics.

OTHER MAKERS
Many other skilled ceramists who worked in Caldas da Rainha in the latter nineteenth century and early twentieth century included Palissy-inspired ceramics among their repertoire. Among the better makers were Francisco Gomes de Avelar (fl. 1875-1897), Avelino Soares Belo (1872-1927), Francisco Elias (1870-1935), Herculano Elias (fl. 1880-1908), João Coelho César (1856-1901), and Visconde de Sacavém (fl. 1892-1896).

COLLECTING
Portuguese Palissy ware generally can be found in antique stores specializing in majolica or other ceramics. You are sure to find some at larger antique shows and in some flea markets. Most pieces are priced by size rather than artist, although works by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro may command a premium. Asking prices vary widely depending upon geographic location, popularity, and dealer knowledge. Plates measuring six-to-eight-inches in very good condition are generally $500 to $800; ten-to-twelve-inch plates run $1000-$1500; fourteen-to-sixteen-inch, $1800-$2500; and eighteen inches or larger, $3000 to $5000. Portuguese Palissy ware pitchers are also quite popular and attractive. Be aware that many were made with saucers, or saucers and lids, but few come complete. A full set, depending on size, will cost $1500 to $3000.

To learn more about Portuguese Palissy ware, visit other pages on this website. Readers wishing to become more actively involved in collecting Palissy ware may join the Majolica Society by writing Majolica International Society, Suite 103, 1275 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10021. Society members receive quarterly newsletters, may attend annual weekends (usually in April), and receive a member's directory.

Marshall P. Katz is an active collector and author on Palissy ware. His third book entitled, "Portuguese Palissy Ware," was published in spring, 1999.

1 French ceramics artist Charles-Jean Avisseau (1795-1861) in 1843 rediscovered Bernard' Palissy's lost secrets of lead-oxide fusion and enameling triggering a 50-year revival of Palissy-inspired ceramics.
2 A technique developed by Palissy around 1545 to imitate the surface of jasper (a type of quartz) by mingling various colored lead glazes with metallic oxides.
3 The Manueline style derives its forms from the sea, incorporating highly elaborate decorative accents including seashells, corals, twisted fisherman's rope, anchors, navigational instruments, and fish nets. It is uniquely Portuguese.
4 Verguinha, the Portuguese word for wicker, is a ceramics technique for weaving clay strips into simulated woven basket shapes.