Bernard Palissy
French potter and engineer · France · On the map · Scientists · Lived 1510 to 1589 · aged 79
Bernard Palissy was a French Huguenot potter, hydraulics engineer and craftsman, famous for having struggled for sixteen years to imitate Chinese porcelain.
Bernard Palissy is read about 123 times a day, in 20 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 109 days, one point a day.
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Media & music
Photos 9
Detail of a Palissy still-life platter of c. 1550 (see below for the whole piece)
Workshop of Palissy, rusticware platter, 1575-1600
Rusticware featuring casts of sea life (1550)
Ewer, 1580-1600, by follower of Bernard Palissy, Victoria and Albert Museum, no. 7178-1860
Bernard Palissy by Mihály Zichy
Oval Dish with Winged Putti
Rusticware platter (detail shown above)About this person
He is best known for his so-called "rusticware", typically highly decorated large oval platters featuring small animals in relief among vegetation, the animals apparently often being moulded from casts taken of dead specimens. It is often difficult to distinguish examples from Palissy's own workshop and those of a number of "followers" who rapidly adopted his style. Imitations and adaptations of his style continued to be made in France until roughly 1800, and then revived considerably in the 19th century.
