Beschreibung:

A large collection of jointed wooden circus figures and animals, circa 1910, comprising: four clowns in original costumes and hats (one ruff lacking), each with expressive red and black painted white faces on bisque heads, one foot and two ears lacking; two characters 'Max and Moritz' in original costumes (Max lacking jacket, Moritz lacking belt), with bisque heads (Moritz's face crudely remoulded) and sculpted hair, Moritz with original top-knot; glass-eyed elephant, with tusks, leather ears, and worn head-cloth (lacking saddle-blanket, tail, and tip of trunk); glass-eyed and open-mouthed donkey, with original saddle-blanket, leather ears, and felt mane (lacking tail), together with various circus accessories, including blue wheelbarrow, four ladders, four chairs, a stool, two barrels, two 'drum' stands, a ball, and five other miscellaneous circus props, figures 22cm (8.5ins) tall, donkey 20cm (8ins) tall, elephant 15cms (6ins) tall In 1903 the toymaker Albert Schoenhut patented his first jointed, wooden figure. The Schoenhut clown became the first in a series of figures that comprised the Humpty Dumpty Circus set. In 1907, Max and Moritz joined the circus set, based on characters from a series of German stories which later inspired Rudolph Dirks's popular comic strip 'The Katzenjammer Kids'. The earliest animals had glass eyes, but in the 1920s, in an effort to scale back on expenses, Schoenhut switched to painted eyes. Although individual pieces and small groups appear on the market from time to time, it is unusual to find such a large and varied collection as this. (28)