In our Workshop

In our workshop
In our workshop Upper Lusatian figures in costume, angels and miners as well as representations of old handcrafts are made. They are all signed, provided with a certificate, and are made in a limited edition of a maximum of 50 pieces a year. The certificates also provide a historical summary of the old handcrafts, traditions and customs of Saxony and Upper Lusatia for each figure.
	In creating our figures we employ various techniques of handwork which have their roots in the tradition of the toymakers’ craft such as turning, turning on a hoop, and carving parts of figures, modelling beards and hair as well as utilizing materials such as linen, leather and hemp to give our figures their living appearance. Another speciality of our shop is the use of slant-formed poured pewter for fences, tools and shoe buckles.

This technique was widespread in some areas in the middle of the 19th century for details of figures, animals, carriages and pyramids. For example, in the area of Annaberg between 1870 and 1930 pewter alloy was used for the completion of tools, legs, antlers, ears, etc., chiefly of figures and animals made from papier mache or dough, as an insertion. Among pyramid makers there were also some to be found who surrounded their pyramids with little pewter fences of which only a few examples can be appreciated today in the Erzgebirge and Dresden folk art museums. Many techniques of handwork have been lost to industrially-made products. Only in small handwork businesses have such old techniques of handcraft survived until today or been rediscovered in the last few years.
The special combination of wood and pewter formed the basis for a pyramid which was newly made in the year 1996 as a masterpiece in our workshop, following historical examples, and since then will be made by special order for our customers. A special value was attached to this pyramid which was detailed with the carefully worked pewter fence which was expected by well-heeled customers of this sort of single piece in the 19th century, but later abandoned because of cost factors.
We took up this old tradition, designed its production anew, and can now provide you the original in its impressive beauty as the only workshop to do so in Saxony.

In the last few years in addition to the Christmas pyramids, all kinds of other figures of village life of Upper Lusatia and its traditional handcrafts have been developed. Ideas and development of these rest on our own designs, which are closely dependent upon literary and museum sources. This is true for the entire decoration of the figures, the body, the necessary tools of the trade and the color selection.
The forms and their coloration, determined in harmony, using old elements of design are the incomparable signature of our workshop. We wish thereby to keep traditions and customs alive, maintain and cultivate the old crafts with their techniques of handwork, and so pass the knowledge of this on to the next generation. At the same time it is our hope to provide you encouragement to

collect these small treasures of old Saxon folkart and to invite you to visit in our workshop during your stay in Upper Lusatia.

Your wooden toy maker master

Steffen Kaiser