Saint-Briac-sur-Mer: a meeting with Anne Jaeckin, Sculptor

Saint-Briac-sur-Mer is one of my favorite seaside towns in Brittany.

For me, it represents refinement and quiet elegance.

I love walking along the coastal path, and discovering its market every Friday morning.

It was in her workshop-gallery that I found Anne Jaeckin—smiling, energetic, and full of life.

In this space, she displays her own work as well as pieces by her husband, Just Jaeckin.

Anne is interested in the human body—romantic duos, movement, mastering space, dance, and horses.

She sculpts faces, hands, feet, and nude figures.

Her passion for classical and contemporary dance makes her especially attentive to the details of the body, and to an accurate and precise representation of movement.

All of her work celebrates the beauty of bodies freed from anxiety.

It was Just, who encouraged Anne, a dancer and pioneer of aerobics in France, to explore art through sculpture.

Lost-wax casting: how the sculpture is made

Anne most often uses the technique of lost-wax casting.

First, the model is wrapped in a refractory material—something very resistant to physical, chemical, and biological factors, and especially to heat.

Next, the wax is removed through a heating process, which makes it possible to create a mold.

The finished mold can then hold a metal—bronze, gold, silver, and so on—to produce the sculpture.

Anne explains the method to me as she goes.

After that, she works with:

– a foundry specialist (the bronzier), and then

– a chasing/chiseling workshop (a ciseleur atelier).

She also talks a lot about how important the quality of the casting is.

Dictionary Notes

– Lost-wax casting: cire perdue.

– Refractory material: matière réfractaire, heat-resistant material.

Anne & Just Jaeckin

Anne speaks at length about **Just Jaeckin**—a filmmaker, photographer, painter, and sculptor—who passed away in September 2022.

After starting out as a photographer (especially in fashion and advertising), Just went on to direct films that became some of the biggest successes in French cinema—particularly *Emmanuelle* (more than 9 million admissions in France alone, and 150 million worldwide).

Just has a much broader body of work across photography, painting, and sculpture.

She tells me about his passion for life, his joy, his childlike perspective—and, at the core, his wisdom.

Anne also shares her passion for sculpture through workshops in her atelier, located at **16 boulevard de la Houle**.

The photos in this letter—and on our Instagram and Facebook pages—are by Anne Jaeckin or by me.

To learn more about this letter and its author, I invite you to visit our Carré Royal Letters page. If you enjoyed this letter, please share it widely