About the artist:

Jan and Joel Martel were born in Nantes, France on March 5, 1896. Twins, the Martel brothers shared a studio and cosigned the works that they conceived together. Their work is extremely varied. They were sculptors of large monuments; they decorated villas; they also created sculptures of figures and animals among other things. There work is cubist in nature. They exhibited in Paris, in the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon des Tuileries, and the Salon d’Automne. They also participated in l’Exposition des Art Décoratifs in 1925, as well as in the first three Salons Musicalistes, 1932-33. There was also an exhibition that was organized for their 100th anniversary of their birth in 1996 in the Hotel de Ville de Boulogne-Billancourt, the Musée Despiau-Wlérick in Mont-de-Marsan, and the Musée d’Art et d’Industrie de Roubaix. The Martel brothers also created a number of monuments, fountains, and reliefs for different cities. This includes a monument to the great French composer and musician Claude Debussy. They died in 1966 six months apart, one after struggling with a long illness and the other as a result of an accident.