Little santons (Christmas statues) by Elcet

Photography • Seasonal/Holiday • posted on Dec 20, 2008

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Description

The santons are a typical Southern France production of little statues. They are molded in red clay, cooked, and hand-painted by expert artists. Some workshops which produce santons are one century old. These figures are especially sold on some South France markets since mid-December. Santon means "little saint". This kind of figure was invented during the French Revolution. During the Revolution times, the churches were closed, therefore people began to create these sculptures to have a little creche and celebrate the birth of Jesus at home. The first known santon-maker was an inhabitant of Marseille, Jean-Louis Lagnel, ca. 1800. Then in 1803 after some agreement, called Concordat, during the reign of Napoleon the1st, the first santon fair happened in Marseille. The santons show not only the creche with Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but also the ordinary people of South of France, as is shown here. Keep in touch with my gallery, I will show a beautiful Nativity with santons in my Christmas post. Clich on the image to see it with better detail. Comments welcome.

Techdata: Nikon D70 with Micro-Nikkor 2.8/60, 1/100s at f/6.3, ISO 1250, available light. The two first photos were taken with auto-white balance, which is a disaster on the Nikon D70, then for the third one I jumped to tungsten white balance. The color balance of the two first picts were aligned on the third one in Photoshop CS3 Extended, which is clearly not perfect, but saves these images.

Comments (26)

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mtc

3:41PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Un bien joli montage qui rend bien compte de l'ambiance des vitrines de ces marchés provençaux. J'aurais préféré sans les indications de prix et sans la carte bancaire, mais à Noel en particulier, il est vraiment difficile d'échapper aux "marchands du temple". BONNES FETES!!!

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dphoadley

3:47PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Everything's cute but the price! ;=D DO keep up the good work! DPH

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KarmaSong

3:52PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Une jolie façon d'indiquer le chemin de Noël qui mène à la crèche provençale. Je dois avouer que je n'avais jamais vu autant de santons réunis dans la même photo auparavant. C'est super d'avoir présenté cette tradition à nos amis anglophones de l'ancien et du nouveau mondes. Une superbe composition, Edouard! Joyeuses fêtes de Noël à toi et Marie-Thérèse!

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jocko500

4:00PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

wonderful photos of the local artists and they work at this time of the years. so happy to see these

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helanker

5:08PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

OH they are really cute and beautiful. Good I am not there :))) I must always fight my self for not buying such stuff, beacuse I havent got space for it anywhere LOL !

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buju93

5:18PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Jolie photo Edouard,très belle compositions de petit santons. Joyeuses fêtes de fin d'année à toi. cordialement. buju.

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Severine

5:44PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Cool des santons, des vrais, cela fait bien longtemps qu'on n'en voit plus dans les vitrines des objets artisanaux comme ça, sont vraiment beaux ^-^

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2Loose2Trek

5:50PM | Sat, 20 December 2008

Thank you so much for the information regarding the introduction of these characters into the Christmas tradition Edouard. Excellent photos. And I hope you and your family enjoy a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

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