Jean-Louis Lagnel and the Invention of the Santon

The man, and what we really know about him

He was born in Marseille in 1764 and died there in 1822, at fifty-eight. That’s about all we know for sure, and it’s already much more than anyone knew seventy years ago.

His death certificate, cited by the researcher Pierre Ripert and reproduced by the International Santon Makers’ Show in Arles, describes him as: “figure maker, living at 70 rue Caisserie, son of Joseph Lagnel and Marie Cadière, husband of Madeleine Ramoina.”

Here’s the most surprising part: no one knew his name until 1953. That year, a collector named Léopold Dor gave the Musée du Vieux Marseille a set of old molds, dated and signed. That gift made it possible to identify him, and Pierre Ripert published the findings in 1955 in the city’s magazine, Marseille. So the “father of the santon” went a hundred and thirty years without a name.

Régis Bertrand, the leading historian on the subject, lists his first known works this way: “a standing woman (1797), then a standing man (1798) and a dog (1799).” Keep that order in mind, because we’ll come back to it: the everyday figures came first. The holy figures (Mary, Saint Joseph, the Three Wise Men) are credited to him later, around 1802–1805, with much less evidence.

And Ripert himself doesn’t single him out: “Lagnel, Louche, Batellier are the first names to record at the beginning of santon art in Marseille.” Three names, not one. So the fairest way to put it is the first Marseille santon maker whose name, records and dated molds have come down to us. He’s the first we can document, which isn’t the same as the first.

What exactly he invented

France’s official listing of the craft as intangible cultural heritage, written by the ethnologist Antonin Chabert and filed with the Ministry of Culture in 2021, chooses its words carefully: “The Marseille figure maker Jean-Louis Lagnel (1764–1822) is credited with using clay for the santon, making mass production by molding possible.”

Notice the two careful choices in one official sentence. He “is credited,” not “invented.” And what he’s credited with is the use of clay and mass molding, not the santon itself.

The method is simple, and that’s what makes it work. You sculpt an original by hand, make a two-part plaster mold from it, press clay into it, close it and lean your whole weight on it, take the figure out, trim the seams with a knife, smooth it with a wet brush, and start again. One master mold makes three to four hundred santons.

The breakthrough was about money more than art. Bertrand puts it simply: “These plaster molds made it easier to reproduce subjects at lower cost.” What Lagnel invented was a price.

What the Revolution never banned

Here’s the story you’ll read everywhere: the French Revolution banned church nativity scenes and Midnight Mass, so the people of Marseille made nativity scenes at home instead, Lagnel met the demand, and the santon was born. It’s tidy and romantic, and it deserves a closer look.

No law ever banned the nativity scene or Midnight Mass. The French National Assembly’s historical records list the laws of the period, and none of them mentions either. What did happen was broader and had the same effect: churches closed starting in the fall of 1793, on an order from the Paris city government; the Republican calendar of October 1793 replaced Sunday with a ten-day week and dropped Christmas from the official calendar; a decree of September 18, 1794, stopped state funding for worship; and a decree of February 21, 1795, restored freedom of worship, but with no outward religious signs allowed. Public worship came back with the Concordat, the agreement between Napoleon and the pope signed on July 15, 1801, and put into effect at Easter 1802.

As for cause and effect, the Ministry’s listing won’t sign on to it, and the wording is worth reading slowly: “Some authors have argued that the ban on Midnight Masses, in 1794, may have encouraged the setting up of small home altars to make up for the absence of Masses.”

“Playing chapel”: the forgotten origin

There’s another lead, older and much better documented, with nothing revolutionary about it. The same Ministry listing, citing Régis Bertrand, describes an 18th-century custom: children were given “little saints in plaster or wood” so they could “play chapel”: “a children’s game consisting of making a little altar with these small figurines at Christmastime; in other words, a miniaturization of church statuary for children.”

Read it closely: a little altar, not a nativity scene. Plaster or wood, not clay. And all before the Revolution.

So small religious figures at home already existed, as a children’s game. Lagnel didn’t come up with the idea of putting holy figures on a dresser. He came up with a way to make lots of them, quickly, for almost nothing.

The word followed the same path. Santon comes from the Provençal santoun, from sant (saint) plus -oun, which makes it small: “little saint.” Bertrand found it in use as early as 1733, while the Académie française dictionary says it entered French in the 19th century. Both can be true: a word can be used in Marseille long before it makes it into standard French.

Before him, the nativity was a show

One last piece of evidence, also from Marseille. In 1775 (Lagnel was eleven), a man named Laurent put on what’s considered the first mechanical nativity scene in France: jointed figures in Provençal costume, plus, for an exotic touch, giraffes, reindeer and hippos.

The version he staged around the time of the Concordat is worth describing. The writer Jean-Paul Clébert tells it this way: a carriage rolls up to the stable, the pope steps out followed by his cardinals, and the Holy Family kneels to receive his blessing. Then, as the shepherds come to adore the Child, a curtain rises on the sea, where a warship sails past. A cannon salute greets the Baby Jesus, who wakes with a start, opens his eyes and waves his arms.

It makes us smile, but there’s more to it. That nativity was a theater, run by a professional, that you went into town to see. Before the santon, seeing the nativity in Marseille meant going to a show.

After him: firing, and the rest

The santon you buy today is fired clay. Lagnel’s wasn’t. In between came a second invention, and hardly anyone mentions it.

It came from Thérèse Neveu (1866–1946), of Aubagne, known as the Lady of Clastre. The Ministry’s listing says it in black and white: “she is the one who introduced firing into santon making.” The City of Aubagne notes that she worked in the Cour de Clastre, made thousands of figures, modeled them on real people of Aubagne, and that the poet Frédéric Mistral wrote to her as “Ma Bello Santouniero” (my beautiful santon maker).

Meanwhile, the santon had taken hold: the Marseille santon fair dates back to 1803, first on the Cours Saint-Louis, then moving around before settling on the Canebière, and it became a yearly event in 1897. The workshops that carry on the craft today are younger than you might think: Fouque in Aix in 1934, Carbonel in Marseille in 1935, Escoffier in 1970.

How many santon makers are there today? It depends on who’s counting, and on who counts as a santon maker: a one-person studio and a long-established family business aren’t the same thing. Instead of a number, we keep a list of verified makers: see the santon maker directory.

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