Jean de Roncourt

JEAN DE RONCOURT (1869-1937).
"Male figure".
Patinated bronze and wooden base.
Signed.
Measurements: 45 x 69 x 21 cm.
Jean Joncourt was a French sculptor whose career developed between the Breton artisan tradition and the aesthetic transformations of the first decades of the 20th century. Although he is mainly known for his monuments to the fallen after the First World War, his production also reveals a progressive assimilation of the formal languages associated with Art Deco.
Born in the Breton town of Irvillac, he is not known to have received formal academic training in sculpture. At the age of twenty, he was professionally registered as a bricklayer, a circumstance that suggests an apprenticeship linked to the construction trades and the practice of craftsmanship, frequent in the career of many provincial sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Between November 1890 and September 1891 he did his military service in the 1st Engineer Regiment, an experience that familiarized him with the military environment and that, years later, would take on a particular significance in his dedication to commemorative monuments.