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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.
❌ PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, ANY INFORMATION. TIME IS RUNNING OUT, THE OLD TIME IS FADING. RIGHT NOW I AM ESPECIALLY SEARCHING FOR THE NAME OF THE ARTIST WHO DESIGNED THE EARLY ART DECO ALFRED MERTENS MOTIVES IN THE 1930s. I DO RESPECT FAMILY SECRETS AND WILL ONLY WRITE ABOUT WHAT THE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ALLOW!
Christiane Dietz
Screen-printed on 3 mm-plywood with additional hand-painting. (GDR Toy)
Hand-painted on plywood, 17cm height. A very impressive motive, I didn't know of its existence until recently.
Hand-painted on plywood. 18cm height. So endearing. Unfortunately I don't know the producer.
Screen-printed on plywood, 12cm height. The text on the back translates to the title on top. The toy store was...
Hand-painted on 4mm-plywood plus 2mm-plywood for the golden halo. Height: 25cm. Yes, there were angels as German Wall Figures. This...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 29cm. I like the high hat, you sometimes find them with Hellerkunst.
Hand-painted on plywood. The faces of the angel children, the colors - this is breathtakingly beautiful! Thank you, Magda Heller!
Hand-painted on plywood, 12x18cm. A rare motive, I found it in the USA. It is signed "MA".
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 18cm. One of the early Mertens-Kunst masterpieces. Very simple works great when every line is perfect, like...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 20cm. Still the Art Deco style of the 1920s. (Alfred Mertens)
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood.
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...
Left: Late 1930s Mertens-Kunst (Original) // Right: 1960s Edelholz Freiberg (Copy)
I put them both on the wall so they almost face each other! The old one is my favorite, but...
In the very first years (from late 1945) this manufactury produced little angel figures. That's why the word "Engel" =...
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...
As Mrs. Gruner-Witkop had told me, the Original Bergischer Engel Jumping Jacks were the most successful items of their product...
There is much paint wear so we can see the pencil lines. Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood.
This little dwarf was really 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...
I once seeked advice on cleaning fairy tale wood plaques. Restauration expert Birgit Linnhoff has worked for years on preserving...
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...
More often than not Hans in Luck is shown with a goose or a pig. This is one of the...
In this design around 1950 Magda Hella has given the woman doctor her own face features.
Hand-painted on 4mm-plywood with much varnish. ("Ravi-Kunst Handarbeit M/18 Däumelinchen" - all stamps, no paper strip)
Hand-painted on plywood, 21cm. One of the Hellerkunst fairies, in this case a tiny bee sized fairy.
Hand-painted on plywood, 18cm. Die USL "SS USA" was a Transatlantic Passenger Liner between New York and Europe from 1951...
Hand-painted on plywood. A wonderful early Hellerkunst highlight, one of my all time favorites. And look at the colors: I...
Fly agaric mushrooms are very popular, and this one is breathtaking! The mushroom is smiling and he is 50% of...
Hand-painted on plywood. The checkered base is rather unusual for a German Wall Figures, but typical of early Muenchner-Kunst.
Mecki is the Hedgehog Mascot of vintage and current German TV Magazine Hoerzu. I don't know anything about the producer...
"This sailor girl is just great! And it's a girl for a change. And she's not melancholic but adventure seeking",...
Early screen print, as beautiful as it gets!
Platsch means splash, so his English name could be Pittisplash. He was a TV character in the then GDR and...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 14cm height. This wood picture belongs to the months series by Hellerkunst. It shows 12 beautiful motives...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood with varnish, 25cm. There is a very similar Mertens version with Snow White wearing a crown.
Hand-painted on wood with varnish, very endearing. It belongs to the four seasons series by Ravi-Kunst.
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood with shining varnish. 21cm height.
This is one of the pale wall figures produced during the 2nd World War. The colors were applied very thinly...
A very rare motive belonging to a hardly known fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It is one of the...
Hellerkunst stamped „Hoher Besuch“ on the back, translating to: „High Visitor“. A rat king? Or Nutcracker and Mouse King? But...
I have only seen it in Mrs Gruner-Witkop's archive so far. Mrs Gruner Witkop was the founder and sole design...
Hand-painted on plywood, 24cm. This is the softer and cuter version of the Hellerkunst sunflower mothers.
Hand-painted on plywood, 17+22cm.
Ravi-Kunst is always hand-painted, but this one is so perfect it seems to have been a special order. His history:...
Mother Holle (also called Mother Hulda) is very often depicted with a pillow, but hardly with feathers, like here!
Hand-painted on wood and very rare. I have only known of two Wooden Wall Figures depicting balloons, this is one...
Someone must have been protecting this wall figure all these years. I only know of this one item so far...
Early sceen print with added hand-painting. There are only a few designs of Rapunzel as German Wall Figure, this is...
This is a square wood picture by Hellerkunst and on its back someone wrote (believe it or not) a shopping...
Hand-painted on cardboard. Most producers of wall figures had problems getting high quality material during the 2nd World War. All...
"For my little Reiner over his bed from your granny." [sic] That's the translation, and yes, there really are these...
Which is the most beautiful of them all? Sometimes I don't know which of the early Art DecoWall Figures I...
Vintage German wall figures in our modern enviornment. Hand-painted on plywood, thick paint layers, much varnish. Typical Hilla.
Hand-painted on wood and very rare. It is a very unusual style I have not come across so far. Look...
There are two single handed sailors by Hellerkunst: One with waves, one without. This is the younger version with the...
Hand-painted on wood with varnish and rare. I am not absolutely sure it is Ravi-Kunst. Here the 4 that make...
A date on the back of a antique wall figure is very valuable - it helps to tell when a...
Hand-painted on plywood. A very laborate wall figure. Look at the details of the clothes and the shadows!
Height: 23cm. There is a newer version by Magda Heller's son, Ralf Heller. In that new version there is no...
Hand-painted on plywood, 24cm. What a beautiful highlight! Unfortunately I don't know the producer's name. The base is typical of...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 25cm. This wood picture belongs to a Hellerkunst series of German Cildren in traditional clothing, dirndl and...
In spite of the foreboding 1930s: Ilse Schneider's wall figures almost always came in bright colors, in good times and...
Every time had their very own Hansel and Gretel faces. Even before the beginning of the Second World War the...
Hand-painted on 2,5mm plywood. With the mean dwarf, who never thanks the lovely girl for their help but keeps complaining...
This is a large and wide wall figure! We have throne and a pillow, too. In the 1970s Heller produced...
A typical question about wall figures is: "What do you do with them?" Well, it’s in the name, you just...
With this beautiful and somewhat sad 1940er Golden Key Child I want to thank the wonderful artist of Ravi-Kunst, Lisa...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood. After all this time - still one of the brightest wall figures with its sun yellow dress...
At first glance it seems to be a blue diamond, shining and making the dwarf so happy, but it's a...
Screen-printed with additional hand-painting. A beautiful and rare color scheme for the Seven Ravens by Mertens.
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...
Hand-painted on plywood. Light blue with pink flowers - always a wonderful color scheme! And the gold of the tiny...
Hand-painted on 3mm-plywood, 22cm. Very beautiful, reflecting the spirit of the time. Look at the base: Most wood hangings of...
All the jumping jacks by Ravi-Kunst had great quality! Each was hand-painted and had solid metal joints. I have not...
Very rare, very enchanting. Hand-painted on wood and a wonderfully done copy, too. I had looked for it for years...
The artist herself, Johanna Gruner-Witkop gave it to me for the Online Museum. Hand-painted on wood end of the 1940s....
Sorry, this entry is only available in German.
Look at the slim figures of the goose maids, the Golden Daughter (Mother Holle) and the Frog King: The are...
Hobby-Art / at home craft applies to the thousands of boys and girls and sometimes their parents, too, who produced...
The German Democratic Republic existed from 1949-1990. It was also called East Germany at that time. They produced a lot...
Here you find among others: Ore Mountains and GDR, Original Bergischer Engel, Grossmann and Munchner Kunst und Handwerk.
The manufactury Edelholz Freiberg belonged to Margarethe Edel. The GRD government took it from the owner and made it a...
Johannes Graupner was the creative mind behind "Graupner", also known as "Graubele". At the beginning, he had worked for "Cannstatter...
Enter MAERCHEN-HOLZBILD in the Ebay-GERMANY-search for 500 results! Your purchase helps my project of establishing the digital heritage of the...
Hellerkunst was founded in 1927 by Magda and Georg Heller. They became famous for their lovely Wooden Fairy Tale Wall...
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...