Santons Marcel Carbonel

Marcel Carbonel began making santons - the small painted clay figures used in Provencal Christmas nativity scenes - in Marseille in 1935, working from a workshop on rue Fort-Notre-Dame in the city's 7th arrondissement, in the Saint-Victor neighborhood where the workshops remain today. Before turning to santons, Carbonel had worked as a porter, taxi driver, streetcar operator and courier, and had left art school in 1928 for lack of means after his father's death, later learning lithography. He started the business with his wife Clotilde, a moulder, and two decorators. By the 1950s the workshop employed about ten people, and Carbonel built a reputation for detailed, vividly colored figures that helped standardize a recognizable santon style. In 1977, his daughter and son-in-law, Daniele and Alfred Renoux, formalized the business as Les Ateliers Marcel Carbonel. In 2007, the workshop received France's 'Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant' (Living Heritage Business) designation. The Marseille site today combines a working atelier, boutique and museum, open to visitors year-round.