French figure behind British sculpture (6)
I believe the answer is:
bronze
'sculpture' is the definition.
(I know that bronze is a type of sculpture)
'french figure behind british' is the wordplay.
'french figure' becomes 'onze' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'behind' says to put letters next to each other.
'british' becomes 'br' (abbreviation for British).
'onze' put after 'br' is 'BRONZE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bronze that I've seen before include "Third place - alloy" , "Hard alloy suitable for casting" , "Third-place medal" , "Third prize" , "Popular alloy for sculptures" .)