Portuguese Palissy ware

by Marshall P. Katz

The great French sixteenth-century potter, Bernard Palissy, created a genre of rustic ceramic ware reproducing three-dimensional still lifes of natural objects, flora and fauna of all types, including small animals, reptiles, fish, and shells rendered in high relief and natural colors. His work influenced a school of artists that flourished in the Portuguese town of Caldas da Rainha, sixty-five miles north of Lisbon, operating in at least twenty-five factories between 1853 and 1920. Here developed a particular style and color palette, as well as the "moss" background only found in ceramics from this area. This volume surveys the work of the most important artists of the Portuguese Palissy revival, focusing on the two major figures, Manuel Cipriano Gomes Mafra and Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, but also covering other important ceramists, including Jose Alves Cunha, Jose Francisco de Sousa, and Manuel Gustavo Bordalo Pinheiro.