A passion : Bernard Palissy
Christine Viennnet’s work has been, for a long period, inspired by the naturalistic style of the renowned Renaissance humanist and ceramicist. She has dedicated a book and other booklets to him and started collecting Palissy ware from the age of sixteen…
BERNARD PALISSY - 1510 - 1590
Bernard Palissy
Glass painter, land surveyor, geologist, philosopher, great defender of the Protestants during the terrible 40 years of religious wars in France, Bernard Palissy was born in Agen in 1510, of unknown origin. He was passionate about nature, which he studied and defended during his whole life, becoming an ecologist before his time.

A self-taught ceramicist, he invented his own special style, which he called “Rustic Figulines”, glorifying nature and its Creator. Palissy moulded snakes, frogs and lizards, shells, insects, flowers and plants as finely as a jeweller, giving them life with his generous glazes which took him 16 years to discover.