Collinge Antiques has dated this piece to the 1920s.
Superb quality casting with very good colour and patina. Large signature for Etcheto in the cast on the plinth and a foundry mark for Thiébaut Freres, Fumiere et Cie (the company name used between 1920-1926) . Excellent condition.

The subject is the French middle ages poet Francois Villon (1431-1463) who was arrested, exiled and imprisoned in Paris for multiple crimes including in 1455 the stabbing in self defence of a priest. One of his best known poems The Ballade of the Hanged Men was apparently written when Villon was in the Cha^telet prison under sentence of death.

Etcheto was commissioned to produce a sculpture of Villon by the Paris town hall in 1879, debuting a plaster model at the 1881 Paris Salon with a bronze being commissioned the following year from the Thiébaut Freres foundry.
Width: 8.5" (21.5 cm)
Height: 29.5" (75 cm)
Depth: 9.5" (24 cm)
Collinge Antiques has dated this piece to the 1920s.
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