SANTONS

Care & Storage

A santon spends eleven months a year in a box, and that’s where most breaks happen, not in the nativity. Here’s how to clean your figures safely, fix a break neatly, and store your collection so it’s all in one piece next Christmas.

Resin, porcelain or plaster set? For figures that aren’t santons, see how to fix and care for an old nativity set.

First, figure out what it’s made of

Before you use anything on a santon, turn it over. The bottom of the base is almost always left unpainted, so it shows you what the piece is made of, and that changes everything about how you clean it. It’s the first thing collectors do, and the step most online advice skips.

Material What you see at the base What it can take
Terracotta Red, ochre or white depending on the clay, fine grain, hard surface; the piece rings clear when you tap it with a fingernail. Light cleaning with a damp, well-wrung cloth.
Unfired clay Same color, but the surface is soft: it scratches with a fingernail and leaves clay dust on your finger. Nothing damp. Ever.
Plaster Bright white and porous, surprisingly light, edges that chip rather than break cleanly. Dry methods only, and above all nothing oily.
Resin Smooth, even surface, sometimes a fine mold line on the side; the base sounds hollow. Lukewarm, slightly soapy water.

The mistake that ruins the most santons. Unfired clay crumbles when it gets wet. Collectors often tell of washing a santon and watching its foot literally melt away. Santons from Provence are usually fired, at around 1,740 to 1,830 °F (950 to 1,000 °C) depending on the maker, but you’ll still come across unfired pieces: old souvenirs, side products, dime-store figurines. If you’re not sure, test the bottom of the base with a barely damp cotton swab. If the clay rubs off on the cotton, the piece isn’t fired.

Plaster needs its own care. You’ll often read that you should rub it with olive oil or brighten it with white vinegar. Don’t. Oil soaks in and leaves a stain you can’t remove, and vinegar damages both the plaster and the paint. A soft, dry brush is all a plaster figure needs.

Cleaning

The basic rule: as little water as possible, and never any cleaning products. Santons are usually painted with gouache or thin acrylic, sometimes straight onto the clay. Soap dulls it and rubbing takes it off.

  1. The dry brush, first

    A big soft brush (a makeup powder brush is perfect) does most of the work. Go from top to bottom, blowing gently as you go.

  2. The air blower

    Use a camera-lens air blower for the hard-to-reach spots: folds, under the arms, between the animals’ legs. Skip canned air, which is strong enough to knock off a glued-on accessory.

  3. The barely damp cotton swab

    Only for a small smudge, on an unpainted spot or on fired paint. Test under the base first, and dry it right away.

Never do any of these:

  • Hold it under the faucet. Unfired clay crumbles, and fired clay soaks up water and takes weeks to dry out.
  • Use household cleaners, vinegar or rubbing alcohol. They all dissolve gouache.
  • Rub it, even with a soft cloth. The paint on the edges wears off first, and that’s where people look.
  • Set it in the sun to dry. Colors fade, red first.

Dressed santons

Fabric attracts dust and hangs on to it. Three tips:

  • Vacuum on low with a piece of nylon stocking stretched over the nozzle. The nylon catches anything that comes loose.
  • No water and no dry cleaning. The fabrics are often old, and glued as much as sewn.
  • Keep them out of the light. Fabric fades much faster than paint. A dressed santon displayed by a sunny window every Christmas will lose its colors within a few years.

Repairing a break

A head, an arm, an accessory: it’s always the same parts that break. The good news is that a clean break can be fixed almost invisibly.

  1. Find all the pieces

    Including the tiny chips. Put them all in a small dish right away, because they disappear within minutes.

  2. Dry-fit first

    Fit the pieces together without glue to find the right position. A break only fits one way, and you can feel it when it’s right.

  3. Glue

    Use white wood glue or a slow-setting two-part epoxy, just a tiny bit, on one side only. Too much glue forms a ridge that keeps the pieces from meeting.

  4. Hold it

    Use masking tape, or set the piece in a dish of dry rice or sand to keep it in place while the glue sets. Give it at least twelve hours.

  5. Fill the line

    If you can still see a line, fill it with a little fine spackle or wood filler on the tip of a toothpick, then sand it gently with very fine sandpaper once it’s dry.

Avoid super glue on porous clay. It soaks in, leaves a dark ring around the joint, and makes any future repair impossible. It also sets instantly, so you can’t fix a crooked fit.

Touching up paint

You can touch up a chipped edge with fine acrylic paint. Keep two things in mind:

  • Go a shade lighter. Mix your color slightly lighter and grayer than the original. A touch-up that’s too bright stands out more than the chip did.
  • Stay inside the chip. Never paint over the original paint. Use a 000 brush and good light.

On an old, valuable or signed piece, don’t touch it up. A chip shows its age, but a clumsy touch-up is damage. If the piece really matters, take it to a professional.

Storing

This is where most santons get broken, and it’s easy to get right.

  1. Each in its own cell

    A box with compartments works best: a hardware organizer, a sewing box, or an egg carton for small sizes. No santon should touch another.

  2. Tissue paper, not newspaper

    Newspaper ink rubs off on light colors, especially in humid weather. Use acid-free tissue paper or plain white paper towels.

  3. Upright, never stacked

    Three santons sitting on a fourth for eleven months will break something.

  4. A rigid box, not a bag

    And use one box per group: Holy Family, procession, tradespeople, animals. No more digging around.

  5. Not the attic, the basement or the garage

    An attic can hit 120 °F in summer and make glued joints come apart. A basement is humid enough to crumble unfired clay and grow mold on fabric. A garage does both. A closet inside the house is far better than any of them.

  6. A desiccant packet

    Put one or two silica gel packets in each box and replace them every year. They cost pennies and take care of humidity.

Keeping an inventory

It seems like overkill until your collection passes thirty pieces, you can’t remember which santon came from which maker, and you buy one you already have.

Keep it simple, one line per santon: the character, the maker, the size, the year you got it, and where you bought it. A photo of each box when you pack up beats any catalog: it’s both a visual inventory and a packing guide for next year.

Two more reasons: a documented collection can be insured, and it lets you pass on more than just objects. A santon that Grandma bought at the Marseille santon fair one winter means a lot more than a figure with no story.

Frequently asked questions

Can you wash a santon with water?

Only if it’s fired, and only with a well-wrung cloth: never under the tap, never soaking. An unfired clay piece crumbles on contact with water, and plaster drinks it up. Always turn the santon over first: the base will tell you what you’re dealing with.

Should you varnish a santon?

A santon painted at the studio needs nothing: the matte finish is part of the look, and adding a glossy varnish gives it away immediately. Varnish only makes sense after a touch-up, to protect the repair, and then a matte acrylic spray, held about 8 inches away, in two light coats rather than one heavy one. Old solvent-based varnishes yellow; today’s matte acrylics much less.

How do you protect dressed santons from moths?

Moths attack wool and felt, not cotton or linen. The safest approach is to store dressed santons in a closed box with acid-free tissue paper and a cedar or lavender sachet, and take the box out once a year to air it. Avoid ordinary mothballs in direct contact: naphthalene vaporizes, redeposits on painted surfaces and leaves an odor that never leaves the fabric.

Can you put santons in an outdoor nativity?

No, unless the pieces are expressly made for outdoors. Frost cracks terracotta as soon as a little moisture has gotten in, UV fades the paint, and a piece that’s taken on water never fully dries. Outdoor nativities, like the yard nativities common across America, use figures of resin, concrete, wood or molded plastic, made in an entirely different way.

Can you store santons in the attic or basement?

They’re the two worst places in the house (along with the garage). The basement is damp and the attic swings from freezing to sweltering; both stress the clay, lift the paint and mold the fabric. A closet in a heated room, at a roughly constant temperature, beats a roomy but exposed storage space.

When should you give up on repairing it yourself?

In three cases: an old or signed piece worth far more than the cost of repair, a piece broken in several places or missing chips, and anything involving the face. The face is the first thing people look at, and a rough touch-up shows from three feet away. Some santon makers will restore pieces that didn’t come from their workshop.