|
|
SMOKY MEN
The Erzgebirge Räuchermännchen - is a small and thoughtful little figure of a man, made of wood and smoking a pipe. The "Räucherkerzchen" ( a scented, fumigating candles) must have already been a part of the Christmas decorations at the beginning of the 19th. century and since then have become a tradition, lovingly adhered too. Today it is not at all possible to say exactly when the first smoking figures appeared.
However, it cannot have been before the introduction of tobacco, which spread to Europe via Great Britain from the beginning of the 17th. century. This surely was an attractive motive for the toy makers to copy.
Around 1800, the Book of Toy Patterns from Nuremberg showed a Hussar, sitting at the coffee table, enjoying his pipe. There is evidence of smoking figures made of paper pulp around the area of Sonneberg in the period from 1820 to 1830.
The new popular fashion of smoking must have inspired the toy makers from Seiffen to make a little puffing figure out of wood. And thus was created the "prototype" from a basic lathed, hollow body inside which the scented candle could slowly burn away, thanks to the interior air stream. The smoke escaped through the mouth of the little wooden man, just as it would from a real person.
SMOKY MEN NUTCRACKERS CHRISTMAS
PYRAMIDS CANDLE ARCHES CRIBS MUSIC
BOXES ANGEL & MINER BOYS
CHOIR
SHOP
ONLINE CONTACT HOME WONDER
IN WOOD