Jean-Marie Valentin

Jean-Marie Valentin, was born at Bourg-des-Comptes in Ille-et-Vilaine on 17 October 1823 and died in Paris on 8 August 1896. He was an architect and a sculptor specialising in religious furnishings such as pulpits, altars and statues. His father Antoine Louis Valentin was a master carpenter working mostly in ebony. He was born in 1784. Jean-Marie first worked at his father's workshop.

In 1842, he studied at the École Municipale de Dessin et Sculpture in Rennes (this became the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts in 1881). He was taught sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Barré. In 1845, he received a bursary from the city of Rennes and travelled to Paris where he worked at a studio together with a Rennes sculptor called François Lanno. He then worked at the studio of François Rude. In around 1850 he settled back in Rennes and started to specialise in church furnishings. His works are numerous and can be seen throughout Ille-et-Vilaine. His first masterpiece was the pulpit erected in the Église Sainte-Croix à Saint-Servan, a suburb of Saint-Malo). This had been promoted and funded by Napoleon III during his visit to Brittany in 1858. During this visit, the church's curate, Monsieur Huchet, had brought the church to the Emperor's attention, highlighting the fact that it lacked furnishings. The Emperor was generous and the pulpit was the result. Jean-Marie was assisted by his brother Antoine, as was often the case, and the pulpit was indeed signed "Valentin Frères, Architectes et sculpteurs". Many years later Valentin completed the memorial to Huchet in the Saint-Malo cathedral.

Perhaps his best-known work was on the Saint-Yves funeral monument in the cathedral at Tréguier. For this work he received a prize in 1888 from the "Salon des Artistes français" where it was shown before installation in the cathedral. Provided by Wikipedia