Pair of Palissy Ware Majolica Crustacean Themed Wall Hanging Ceramic Plates. One has a lobster on it, and the other a crab. 

Size: (largest) 13 x 13 x 3 in. 

Palissy ware is a 19th Century term for ceramics produced in the style of the famous French potter Bernard Palissy (c. 1510-1590), who referred to his own work in the familiar manner as rustique (“in the rustic style”). It is therefore also known as rusticware. Palissy’s distinctive style of polychrome lead-glazed earthenware in a somber earth-toned palette, using naturalistic scenes of plants and animals cast from life, was much imitated by other potters both in his own lifetime and especially in the 19th Century. In this revival, pottery in Palissy’s style was produced by Charles-Jean Avisseau and the Landais family of Tours, who rediscovered Palissy’s techniques in 1843, as well as the Parisians Thomas Sergent, Georges Pull, Francois Maurice, and Victor Barbizet. The style was so popular that Portuguese Palissy ware was produced by the potteries of Mafra, Jose Alves Cunha, José Francisco de Sousa, Cezar, Herculano Elias, and Augusto Baptista de Carvalho. Though they have regional specialties they all share specific characteristics, usually three-dimensional, often aquatic, animals such as snakes, fish, lizards, frogs, and snails arranged onto large platters (wall plates, wall platters, and chargers). Palissy ware is also the name given  by Minton & Co for the earthenware later known as “majolica,” decorated with a mostly new range of colored glazes. The largest single collection of Palissy ware is housed in the New Orleans Museum of Art.