Steve Mueller's Digital Scrapbook

Europe 2002

Monday May 13
Franconia and the Hummel Figurine Factory

For our second daytrip from Bamberg, we headed north to the town of Rödental to visit the Goebel Hummel Figurine Factory. Hummel figurines, which always depict children with oversized hand-me-down clothes and shoes, are among the most sought after ceramic products in the world. Even people who are completely unfamiliar with collectable figurines will often recognize a Hummel. Carolyn is a collector of Hummels, so this trip was a mandatory excursion. The factory is on the site of the original ceramic works founded in 1871 by Franz Goebel. Initially, the product line was restricted to dinnerware, but it was not long before Goebel began producing a limited number of figurines. By the time that the great grandson of the company founder discovered the talented Sister M. I. Hummel, the Goebel company already had an outstanding reputation as a producer of collector-quality figurines. Sister Hummel produced the drawings, and the Goebel artisans transformed these into three-dimensional figures. The visitor's center included a small "museum," which was little more than a series of marketing displays. None of the earliest Hummel figurines were on display, despite the fact that they date back only about seventy years. Carolyn thought that the oldest pieces dated from the 1970's. The most significant part of the display was a collection of legitimately historic European figurines, including Meissen porcelain and Delft ceramics. A film was presented about the life of Sister Hummel, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 37, and visitors were allowed to watch artisans work on the figurines. On the return to Bamberg, we avoided the highway in favor of the slower rural roads that pass through numerous small Franconian farming villages. The name of this region, which is partially bounded by the Main and Danube Rivers, and by some measures is located at the "center of Europe", reflects its heritage as a Frankish state during the Middle Ages. Franconia developed a political and cultural identification with nearby Germanic kingdoms during the reign of Charlemagne. This region has also had strong political and cultural ties to the British monarchy since the 1840 marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Earlier in the day, on the way to Rödental, we passed the castle-topped town of Coburg, the birthplace of Prince Albert. Knowing the significance of Coburg, I recalled a day several years earlier when we visited the tomb of Prince Albert while touring Windsor Castle near London. Franconia is an ancient agricultural stronghold of Germany. The farms of Franconia are disrupted by the occasional hill, often crowned by an ancient castle or monastery. One of the more noticeable agricultural products are bright yellow Canola fields. Canola, also called rapeweed, is related to the mustard family of plants and is used to produce livestock feed and cooking oil. We arrived in Bamberg early enough to have one last walk around the town before leaving the next morning.
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