House & Garden 
Two views of a 
basin by Palissy, 
with decorations in 
relief 
BERNARD PALISSY, HIS WISDOM AND HIS WARES 
The Story of a Famous Potter of Old France, Inventor of Rustic 
Figulines to the King and the Queen Mother 
F ar better it is that 
one man or a small 
number of men should 
make their profit from 
some art by living hon¬ 
estly, than that a large 
number of men should 
struggle, one against the 
other, so that they can¬ 
not gain a livelihood 
save by profaning the 
arts, leaving things half 
A porte luminiere done. So said Master 
by Palissy Bernard Palissy, born 
some four hundred years 
ago—1510, to be exact—near Chateau Biron 
in Perigaud, France. 
Where in the whole history of the arts will a 
more interesting figure be found? His was not 
the swashbuckling career of a Cellini, never¬ 
theless, the serious-minded would not exchange 
him for the volatile Italian who seemed ever 
and anon to be swallowing diamond dust or 
crossing a cardinal for copy. Palissy’s was 
romance of a different sort, but romance never¬ 
theless of a fine type. 
A Forgotten Master 
I have often wondered why we of to-day 
have almost forgotten about Master Bernard, 
Master Bernard, whom the read¬ 
ers of our grandmothers’ genera¬ 
tion immortalized. I suppose 
the cultivated virtue of novelty 
which, in this restless era, de¬ 
mands incessant changing of 
school books from term to term 
failed to bring old Palissy along 
with it. In earlier days it was 
part and parcel of one’s polite 
education to know something of 
Master Bernard, at least to 
know that there had once lived 
such a person. In those less cur- 
riculumed yesterdays the story 
of Palissy the Potter was always 
a welcome one. Perhaps we our¬ 
selves have merely overlooked 
the matter, and so I make here 
this venture, believing time has 
intended no slight to Master 
Bernard’s memory. 
How well I recall a certain 
lower shelf in a library which 
regaled the rainy autumn days 
of my tender years! There were 
treasures here convenint to the 
hand of one aged nine, treasures 
GARDNER TEALL 
fitting the advancement of learning laboriously 
attained under the unflinching persistence of 
an all too faithful governess. In this sanctu¬ 
ary I chanced in childhood to come upon a tiny 
octavo bound in blue, stamped with gilt morn¬ 
ing-glories, morning glories such as I have al¬ 
ways associated, for some unexplored reason, 
with the long late Prince Albert and the equal¬ 
ly long late Lucy Larcom! Within the covers 
of this little book was a highly embellished 
Faience figuline generally ascribed 
to Bernard Palissy 
frontispiece, hand-stenciled in colors of saf¬ 
fron, scarlet and azure with an overwhelmingly 
deep dash of bottle-green. I imagine this vol¬ 
ume emerged from the press at a time when 
analine dyes self-proclaimed their advent to 
the mediocrity of the day. Beyond that I do 
not venture a date. 
This giddy frontispiece seemed, even in my 
childish eyes, profanely gay for the subject it 
presented. Here was depicted the figure of a 
bearded man in foreign dress, visage forlorn, 
person unkempt. The artist pictured him in 
the act of destroying a quantity of furniture of 
a sort that might have given distinction to an 
early Victorian parlor. 
A Destructive Small Boy 
Just what seemed so terrifying about the 
situation, I do not know, unless it was that, as 
I distinctly recall, I myself had occasionally 
been regarded as somewhat destructive in the 
furniture line,—as when, quite unintentionally, 
I had scratched my great-aunt’s mahogany 
sofa in making a desperate attempt not to slide 
off its hair-covered plateau at a moment when 
the peculiarly poignant texture of this revered 
fabric had caused me unwittingly to squirm 
about in manoeuvering for a less aggravating 
bit of the area. From that time on Miss Solan- 
der, the governess, could not adjust her per¬ 
spective to considering me other 
than a menace to mahogany in 
the front of the house or black 
walnut in the rear. 
Thus you can well imagine 
how heroically there loomed 
forth from that frontispiece the 
figure of one who was deliber¬ 
ately breaking up chairs, tables, 
stools, four-posters and what not 
—and a grown man at that! 
But the thrillingness of the situ¬ 
ation was further enhanced by 
the fact that not only was he 
breaking up the furniture, but 
he was feeding it to the flames I 
There was no doubt of it; a co¬ 
pious employment of carmine 
and saffron made that point 
clear. That anyone should have 
dared to be so deliberately de¬ 
structive at once awakened my 
curiosity, and I am not sure it 
did not awaken my admiration 
as well. I hope not, for as we 
grow older we like to think that 
our Golden Days were paragon 
in their virtues. 
