s of original talent, but,
at the hands of his literary admirers, he has gained a legendary rank as
one of the great potters of the world which his pottery does not
warrant. He is supposed to have spent sixteen years in the search for
the white enamel which was being used all the time in Italy and
Spain--probably he was searching for the mystery of Chinese
porcelain--and when he settled down to make the "Palissy ware," he did
nothing more than carry to perfection the methods of the village
pot-makers of his own district. On a hard-fired red clay he disposed
groups of moulded plants, shells, fish and reptiles, painted them with
crude green, brown and yellow colours, and glazed the whole with a
well-prepared lead glaze. His style soon had numerous imitators, like A.
Clericy and B. de Blemont, who executed works quite as good as those of
their master; but their works also vanished and left no permanent
impression on the general trend of French pottery.

Meantime Italian, and, it may be, Spanish potters strayed over the
French border and attempted to introduce the manufacture of their
tin-enamelled wares; for we know of the works of Gambin and Tardessir of
Faenza, established at Lyons about 1556; of Sigalon at Nimes in 1548; of
Jehan Ferro at Nantes about 1580, and other sporadic efforts. The needed
impetus came, however, when the Mantuan duke, Louis de Gonzague, became
duke of Nevers in 1565; and we find Italian majolists, working under
princely patronage, planting their decadent art in the centre of France.
The first efforts met with little success until, with the appearance of
the Conrades from Savona, who were domiciled in Nevers in 1602, we get
the genuine ware of Nevers. Naturally the first productions, whether of
the Conrades or their predecessors, were in the style of the debased
majolica of Savona, but the body and glaze of the ware is harder, the
colours are not so rich, and the execution is less spirited. The first
departure from Italian traditions is seen in the ware of the so-called
"Persian style" of Nevers--probably adopted from contemporary work in
Limoges enamels on metal--where conventional and fanciful designs of
flowers and foliage, birds, animals or figures were thickly raised in
white enamel on a ground of bright, intense cobalt-blue glaze. After the
middle of the 17th century the Italian style of design appears to have
been entirely replaced by pseudo-oriental patterns painted in blue or in
polychrome