The Collaborative International Dictionary
Palissy \Pal"is*sy\, a. Designating, or of the nature of, a kind of pottery made by Bernard Palissy, in France, in the 16th centry.
Palissy ware, glazed pottery like that made by Bernard Palissy; especially, that having figures of fishes, reptiles, etc., in high relief. See Palissy, below.
Wikipedia
Palissy is the brand name under which the English firm of A.E. Jones and Sons, of Stoke-on-Trent, marketed their china and pottery. The name was chosen as a tribute to Bernard Palissy, the famous French potter of the 16th century, creator of Palissy ware. The company origins may date back to the 1850s, and be a split from the Jones family, such as George Jones, who produced quite upmarket items through the 1900s.
Usage examples of "palissy".
The great Montrose, with his poems and his scented love-locks, his devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his death, to which he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride, does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all black and shrunk and wrinkled, and bowed over his furnaces.
Bernard Palissy was born in a village of France, not very far from the great river Garonne.
Pons happened to meet Palissy, and finding that the same subjects interested them both, he showed him the cup.
The news of the capture soon reached Palissy, and we may be sure he had made a study of the best of the pots before they were bought by the king, Francis I.
But the Venetian and Spanish treasures still kept their secret, and Palissy was forced to work on in the dark, buying cheap earthen pots and breaking them, and pounding the pieces in a mortar, so as to discover, if he could, the substances of which they were made.
The amount of wood alone necessary to feed the furnaces was enormous, and when Palissy could no longer afford to buy it, he cut down all the trees and bushes in his garden, and when they were exhausted burned all the tables and chairs in the house and tore up the floors.
The mixture which produced the white glaze was probably due to Palissy having added unconsciously a little more of some special substance, because when he tried to make a fresh mixture to spread over the rest of the pieces he failed to obtain the same result.
France, and Palissy, always anxious to understand everything that came in his way, began first to inquire into the new doctrines, and then to adopt them.
Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the Catholics.
He was warned to change his ways, and as he did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor of the rebellious provinces, thought he would keep Palissy from greater mischief by putting him into prison.
Ecouen, belonging to Montmorency, situated about twelve miles from Paris, had been decorated by Palissy before he entered the service of the queen-mother, and had gained him great fame and many commissions.
Like the rest of his family, however, he was fond of art, and protected the potter, and a few months later we find Palissy, quite unharmed, giving lectures on natural history to some of the most famous scientific men in Paris.
In spite of his strong frame, years passed in a prison of those days, where hunger, cold, and dirt would break any man down, proved too much even for Bernard Palissy, now more than eighty years of age.
So you see after all Palissy did a great deal for pottery-making, since up to this time no one had ever thought of coloring the glaze itself.
What we chiefly remember of Palissy is his introduction into china-making of these hitherto unknown colored enamels.