Au grand Saint-Antoine, Statue in Paris 10e Arrondissement, France

Au grand Saint-Antoine is a stone statue at the corner of Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, close to Porte Saint-Denis. It shows Saint Anthony with a calm face, and at his feet a small pig looks up toward him.

The statue dates from the end of the nineteenth century and was commissioned by a local pork butcher. It has stayed on the same street corner since then, becoming a small fixed point in a neighborhood that has otherwise changed a great deal.

A pork butcher placed this figure here to draw customers, since Saint Anthony is the patron of charcutiers. Today the small pig beside the saint still reads as a shop sign, tying the sculpture to the food trade history of the street.

Lift your head when you pass the corner, because the statue sits above street level and is easy to miss among the surrounding shop signs. You can pause on the sidewalk for a moment, then continue toward the boulevard or the quieter side streets.

You can pass it every day without noticing it, yet the pig at the saint's feet turns the sculpture into an old advertisement. That mix of religious figure and pork butcher sign is what makes this corner unusual among Paris statues.