BERNARD DE PALISSY. 



Fig. 23. 



form and design, however, bore no proportion to the number of 

 articles produced, and we accordingly find a limited number of 

 forms and patterns, indefinitely repeated in the extant collections. 



17. An oval plateau highly decorated in relief by this potter is 

 represented in fig. 24. This piece is well known to amateurs 

 under the name of the dish of the fair garden-girl, plat de la 

 Belle Jardiniere. The decorations, coloured yellow and green, are 

 in low relief. The bottom is scaled green and reddish yellow. 

 This piece is in the collection Sauvageot. 



18. Between the middle of the seventeenth century and its close 

 commenced the manufacture of the fine earthenware, which, 

 without attaining the excellence of porcelain, constituted a great 

 improvement on the previous products of this industry. This was 

 owing partly to the discovery of a white plastic clay as a sub- 

 stitute for the reddish clay previously used in France, Germany, 

 and Italy, which rendered it possible to use a colourless trans- 

 parent glaze instead of the opaque coloured glaze, which had 

 been previously used. Besides this, there were numerous improve- 

 ments made in the details of the manufacture by the potters who 

 established themselves in Staffordshire, and gave celebrity to the 

 extensive district since known as the Potteries. 



The establishment of this industry in Staffordshire originated 

 from the circumstance of strata of good plastic clay being found 



139 



