Home
Welcome to the Online Museum of German Wall Figures!
These Fairy Tale Wood Pictures or Wall Figures are a cornucopia of beauty and of history. They are all made of wood. They are all from the 20th century. Many are hand-painted. With this Online-Museum I want to create something beautiful. So, if you love vintage art, take a close look and enjoy, maybe remember, too!
Don’t forget to take a close look at the menu on top: There you will find about 1000 different wood pictures! On this home page you will find much additional knowledge about Fairy Tale Wood Pictures.
M i s s i o n S t a t e m e n t: “The era of German Wall Figures (1930s to 1970s) has almost been forgotten, even in Germany, where 99% of the Fairy Tale Wood Pictures were produced. I am working on preserving the beauty of this era on the World Wide Web.
Christiane Dietz
The manufacturer Original Bergischer Engel produced from the 1940s to 1960s.
Here you'll find among others Edelholz Freiberg, WEHA, Paul May and Kurt Suess.
Hobby Fretwork Craft after the Hellerkunst original which was designed 20 years earlier.
Hand-painted on 6mm-plywood with varnish. (Hartmanns Laubsäge-Vorlagen 61.)
Hand-painted on 6mm-plywood with varnish. Hartmann invented lots of fretwork designs. And very creative, too. Some of them are rather...
Top left: 1930s unknown producer, hand-painted on 3mm-plywood. Top left: Late 1940s Mertens-Kunst, hand-painted on 3mm-plywood. Bottom left: Early 1970er...
Top left: 1930s Hellerkunst, hand-painted on 3mm-plywood. Top right: Early 1940s unknown producer, hand-painted on plywood. Bottom left: 1960s Graupner...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood with varnish. Sometimes the lines of a figure were painted black, but here they were carved. Very...
In this art box it says: "Junger Bastler - Alter Meister" = Young craft child - Old Master." That was...
These wood pictures belong to the Arnheim Collection a German soldier sent to his children back home in 1942. They...
Knowing the currency of vintage pricing in the USA is easy, because the USA has always had the dollar. Germany...
These beautiful pictures were made by Andrea from Swabia, which is a beautiful region of south Germany. She created this...
Look at the moon figure in the middle, it’s Little Peter’s Journey to the Moon. Then enter „Ilse Schneider Moon“...
Just after the Second World War Hedi Duell had to earn money to support her two little sons Willi and...
How do you find information about a manufactory that produced their last Fairy Tale Wood Picture more than 50 years...
This is Johanna Witkop around the time she founded "Original Bergischer Engel". She had been only 17 back then. In...
That's what Mrs. Gruner-Witkop said in 2018. She drew the left princess. The right princess with "big head" was most...
Which is the most famous Toy Fair in Germany? Most likely it’s the Nuremberg Toy Fair, taking place once a...
I am really lucky that Mrs Gruner-Witkop's father used to keep a thick ring binder with lots of information about...
All the 1950s products of Original Bergischer Engel were hand-painted. First it were little angels, later on wall figures and...
It was the first Toy Fair in Frankfurt right after the Second World War. This picture is such a treasure:...
The beautiful thing about this list is this: We get to know the christening names of their Fairy Tale Wood...
These Vorbach templates were rather pupular back then.
My Dresden friend Brigitte had arranged an appointment in the Dresden Folkart Museum, its proper name being: „Museum für Saechsische...
I was lucky to have made a wonderful new friend in 2017. Brigitte is very interested in art (talented, too!)...
Most of these wall figures are Hellerkunst, 4 are by other producers. Sorry about the missing translation, but this is...
One of the plastic figures by Hellerkunst. It was a 1960s trial at changing the material. Hellerkunst AP/12 Lautenspieler Lute...
There is much paint wear so we can see the pencil lines. Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood.
This wall figure was actually produced by Mertens-Kunst. At the end of the 1960s Original Bergischer Engel had been sold...
The most interesting part in this Graubele-Cronicle is this: Johannes Graupner started working in the fretwork template business in 1930....
I love this collection, it helped me date GDR wood pictures more accurately. Before it I would have dated this...
In 1952 this producer of fairy tale wood pictures still owned her own company. Later it was added to the...
The name RA-VI comes from the surnames of the founder ladies: Erna Rath and Lisa Viertel. Lisa Viertel (left) was...
The left one is the original by Mertens-Kunst. The other one (Edelholz Freiberg) was produced in the Ore Mountains, during...
The name RA-VI comes from the surnames of the founder ladies: Erna Rath and Lisa Viertel. Lisa Viertel was the...
Ilse Schneider wrote and illustrated books about dwarfs and fairies. Many of her motives gave inspiration for wood hangings. This...
In this design around 1950 Magda Hella has given the woman doctor her own face features.
Screen-printed with additional hand-painting. "Auch die Heinzelmännchen schlafen in Irisette" is printed on the back. It means, that the gnomes...
Look at the slim figures of the goose maids, the Golden Daughter (Mother Holle) and the Frog King: The are...
"For my little Reiner over his bed from your granny." [sic] That's the translation, and yes, there really are these...
A typical question about wall figures is: "What do you do with them?" Well, it’s in the name, you just...
Hand-painted on wood with varnish. It is most likely a copy of the original Hellerkunst Fairy on a Leaf. Only...
The fine face features, the hair style, the yellow bodice with the wide dot dress - this is one of...
All the jumping jacks by RAVI-Kunst had great quality! Each was hand-painted and had solid metal joints. I have not...
Sorry, this entry is only available in German.
The German Democratic Republic existed from 1949-1990. It was also called East Germany at that time. They produced a lot...
Johannes Graupner was the creative mind behind "Graupner", also known as "Graubele". At the beginning, he had worked for "Cannstatter...
My Ebay Shop is called maerchenholzbilder. That’s the German word for Fairy Tale Wood Pictures. You’ll see all 700 listings...
The founder of Mertens-Kunst was Alfred Mertens, born in 1898. Later, Alfred Mertens' son led the manufactury and his sister...
RAVI-Kunst was a 1940ies to 1960ies manufacturer of German Wall Figures located in Hamburg, in the north of Germany. The...