Bernard Palissy looks at his last wood being digested by the flames. But the ceramics kiln roars like a hungry wolf for more. With tears in his eyes of smoke, sweat, fatigue and despair he scans the room. Floor shelves, tables, chairs and everything else that burns fall prey to his kiln. He will and he must reach the temperature to melt his glazes…

Saintes around 1540 in the south of France. Bernard Palissy (1510-1590) experiments as a man possessed. Or insane as his neighbors claim. He is looking for an elusive glaze that he got to know on one of his distant travels.

His wife and children are threatening to leave him. Nevertheless, he put everything at risk to develop a glaze, which is unprecedented in 16th century France.

Rustic Ceramics, Figulines Rustique

Palissy has become famous for his “rustic ceramics” or “figulines rustique“, as he described it himself. Bowls richly decorated with lifelike leaves, lizards, snake, crabs, fish and other animals. Glossy glazed with rich colors, green, brown, purple and yellow in various rustic shades.

A ceramist, philosopher, writer, glazier, surveyor and scientist; “L’homme Universal“. A representative of the early renaissance in France. Originally a glazier, he traveled through the region and made a living by painting glass or as a surveyor.

Born in the south of France around 1510. He studied nature and raw materials in this region. He continued this in the countries he would later visit, such as Germany, Italy and England.

Palissy finally settled in 1539 in Saintes, south of France, as a ceramist. Here he started experimenting with firing and glazing ceramics as he had come to know them on his travels, particularly in Italy.

Captivity and flight to Paris

Around 1545 his endless glaze experiments were finally successful. After that he expanded his glaze palette.  Now he could produce ceramics that he could sell. Hence his fame as a ceramist rose rapidly. From 1555 he was able to count the French wealthy among his clientele, including the king, Henri II.  He also designed “grottos” for various gardens of noble families.

But these are turbulent times in France. The religious wars between the Catholic and the Huguenots have started and make many victims. The king’s catholic troops capture the prominent Huguenot Palissy in 1563 and imprison him in Bordeaux. In captivity, he writes his first book that he will later publish: “Recepte Véritable” (true recipe).

Through the intervention of one of his mighty patroness Catherine de ‘ Medici , he is released again and continues to work on his oeuvre. But 10 years later, again because of his conviction,  imprisonment threatens. He flees to Sedan and a few years later to Paris.

Died glaze secrets

He established his workshop in Paris in 1576, which was discovered in the 80’s of the last century during the renovation of the Louvre. Unfortunately, he is also persecuted here and imprisoned again in 1588.

The glaze secrets of Palissy have died with him in 1590 in the dungeons of the Bastille of Paris . Past away in captivity for his ideals, immortalized in his ceramics and glazes.

After his death, many ceramists have forged/copied his work (les imitators) and continued (les continuateurs).  Despite that his glaze recipes have never been figured out.

Have Palissy’s glaze secrets been lost forever?

Mid 2017 a study was published in which the chemical composition of a number of glazes of Palissy have been described. Using some shards, X-ray diffraction and an electron microscope (SEM-EDS), the chemical composition of his glazes were (re)discovered (!).

It’s not exactly the glaze recipe, but it does give a good indication. 500 years after his birth, the glazes of Bernard Palissy are still alive and kicking.

More about Bernard Palissy

Also interested in the life and work of Bernard Palissy? Besides the work he has written himself, many books have appeared, but mostly in French, a few in English.

Below my selection:

• Recepte Veritable, Bernard Palissy (1563)
• Oeuvres complètes de Bernard Palissy, reissue (1844)
• Oeuvres complètes de Bernard Palissy, reissue (1880)
• Bernard Palissy, Le Secret des Émaux, Jean-Pierre Poirier (2010)
• Bernard Palissy, In Pursuit of Earthly Pradadise, Leonard N. Amico (1994)
• Palissy The Potter: The Life of Bernard Palissy, or Saintes, Henry Morley (1853)
• Master Bernard (Maitre Bernard), Elie Berthet, (1875, English translation 2018). Historical novel, so (largely) fiction (!) but still nice to read 🙂

Psst.. and what about the glaze recipe?

Oh yes, the glaze secret. According to the study “the Art of Bernard Palissy (1510 – 1590).  Influence of firing conditions on the
microstructure or iron-coloured high-lead glazes” by Gauthier Roisineuit et. al. (2017), shard 2 (NP2) had a chemical composition as in the table below. On this basis I was able to calculate the UMF (Seger formula).

Based on that I could also make a facsimile glaze recipe. In his book he described how to make lead white, so I assumed that he also used this in his glazes. For the rest I have used contemporary raw materials. It will not be exactly what Palissy used in his time, but it does give an idea what it might have looked like:-)

But beware!!! This recipe is very toxic. It is very dangerous if you would make it because of the toxic lead white. But the glaze is still toxic when it has been fired! So, for these reasons: do not make and use this glaze recipe!!

A study from 2015 showed that Palissy was not the only ceramist in the Middle Ages that used lead in his glazes. The rich nobility in Europe who used these glazed ceramics have therefore all suffered from lead poisoning . In their bones the remaining lead is still to be found. We can only guess how things went with the potters who made them … Only their ceramics have stood the test of time.

I think it’s great that the glaze secrets of Palissy have become known again after 500 years. His ceramics and glazes are still to be admired…. behind glass in a museum, not to use yourself!

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About Post Author

Daniel Bende

Designs and creates under the trade name DFB-ceramics hand-thrown stoneware figurative ceramics.

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