Monkey Coin - After François Rolard - Bronze

A bronze cast depicting a smiling young juggler performing a dance step. With his right hand, he spins a hoop from which a monkey musician is suspended. The sinuous lines formed by the bodies of the half-naked figure and the animal lend the composition an elegant sense of movement and balance.

Titled “Monnaie de singe” (Monkey Coin), the work refers to a medieval tradition whereby certain professions—such as jugglers, tamer, carnival performers, and animal handlers, were exempt from the four-denier toll required to cross the Petit-Pont, which connected the Île de la Cité to Rue Saint-Jacques.

Presented at the 1882 Salon, the sculpture was a resounding success. A bronze version was installed in 1884 at Square Montholon, in Paris’s 9th arrondissement. It remained there until 1942, when it was melted down as part of the non-ferrous metal reclamation policy carried out under the Vichy regime.

François Rolard was a 19th-century French sculptor. He trained at the École nationale des beaux-arts in Paris in the studio of sculptor François Jouffroy. Before 1882, he primarily created medallions, busts, and a few statues. At the age of forty, he presented an original work, “Monnaie de singe,” at the 1882 Salon. His work, which was part of the 19th-century revival of interest in the Middle Ages, was a resounding success. The large plaster model is on display in the sculpture gallery of the Petit Palais in Paris.

Bronze cast signed on the base “F. Rolard” and “Monnaie de Singe.”