Palissy was nearly all his life engaged in lecturing on scientific and other subjects, and in the work of proselytism for the Reformed Church of which he was a member, being in prison more than once on account of his religious ideas, and eventually died in the Bastille Prison in poverty in 1590 at the age of eighty. As efforts of decorative design the encrusted wares of Palissy cannot be placed in a high rank of decorative art, but the art of France would be considerably poorer without the genius of Palissy, an artist of whom any nation might be justly proud. NEVERS, ROUEN, AND MOUSTIERS WARES. We have mentioned before that some maiolica artists and workmen came from Italy in the sixteenth century to Nevers and Lyons and there set up potteries. One of these artists, named Scipio Gambin, worked at Nevers, under the patronage of the Duc de Nivernais. [Illustration: Fig. 51.—Pilgrim’s Bottle, Nevers Ware. (S.K.M.)] The maiolica productions at Nevers were in imitation of the Urbino, Castel-Durante, and Faenza wares, but the colours were inferior, probably owing to the poorer glaze used by the French potters. The subjects of the decoration were at first similar to the “istoriati” decoration of the Urbino ware, and were compositions from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (Fig. 51) or from the Bible. Later on the potters of Nevers imitated the shapes of Oriental pottery with French decorations (Fig. 52). [Illustration: Fig. 52.—Vase, Nevers Ware.] In 1608 two Italians—the brothers Conrade—came from Genoa to Nevers, and were probably the successors of Gambin: the ware made by them was decorated with a mixture of Chinese and Italian ornament, and the colouring was blue, manganese, brown, and white. In 1632 a Frenchman named Pierre Custode and his sons established a pottery at the sign of “The Ostrich” at Nevers. To them is ascribed the beautiful Persian blue-coloured pottery decorated with naturalistic flowers and birds in solid white with yellow heightenings, the shape and decoration being Chinese in character. The blue glaze peculiar to Nevers pottery of this period is very fine, and has been imitated by French and foreign potters, but without success. [Illustration: Fig. 53.—Pilgrim’s Bottle, Nevers Ware. (S.K.M.)] The great importation of Chinese porcelain into Europe in the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth had a strong influence on the art of the Nevers pottery, and many pieces exist on which Chinese designs almost pure were copied in a blue _Camaïen_ (monochrome), or in a harmonious mixture of blue and purple-black manganese, the latter colour being a mixture of the blue with manganese. In the eighteenth century the style of design was debased and very much degraded, and the pottery became coarse and heavy. [Illustration: Fig. 54.—Plateau, Rouen Ware. (S.K.M.)]