Tobacco jar - Lot 46

Tobacco jar Terracotta, 20th century A figure depicting an old shepherd, bent under the weight of age, walking with a stick that serves as his cane. He is leaning against a large, hollowed-out tree trunk that serves as the tobacco jar; the lid’s handle is a curved wooden branch. On the body of the jar, above a smooth area intended for an inscription, a well-drawn cicada evokes Provence. Signed “P Fouque” for Paul Fouque, son of Jean-Baptiste, himself a former student of the Beaux-Arts, with whom he founded the “Santons Fou-que” workshop in Aix-en-Provence in 1934. Not to be confused with the Fouque of Moustiers (Joseph, the founder), who was a partner and later successor to Pierre Clerissy II—a man a century his senior—and who has no connection to the family of santon makers discussed here. Mireille Fouque, Paul’s daughter, confirmed that this pot is part of a series her father produced between 1950 and 1958—either featuring a santon on a pedestal, as seen here, or without a figure. Each pot could feature a varying number of santons and take on a different shape depending on whether it was intended to be a tobacco jar, a piggy bank, a trinket box, or a candy jar. The space near the cicada was used to inscribe, in India ink, the name of the person receiving the jar as a gift or an inscription such as “Happy Birthday, Dad,” etc. These models were sold for nearly ten years. A few chips. H 15.5 cm