A cobbler bent over his work, hammer raised above a boot on the last: this hand-painted porcelain figurine comes from the Carl Scheidig factory in Grafenthal, Thuringia, and dates from the mid-20th century. The underside carries the factory's crowned S in underglaze blue, the impressed model number 9852 and the export mark "Foreign". This plain version of the crowned S predates 1972, when the nationalised factory began adding "GDR" beneath it.
Founded in 1906 next to the Grafenthal railway station, Scheidig built its name on figurines and small genre groups rather than tableware. Scenes of trades and everyday work were a steady part of that repertoire, and the cobbler is one of the more detailed of them, with a whole workshop modelled around a single seated figure.
The palette is restrained: a glossy cornflower-blue apron over a white shirt, sand-coloured trousers, sage-green shoes and a matching three-legged stool. Beside him stands a cream workbench set with a dark bottle, a small bowl and tools, and a pair of black boots lies on the oval base. Seen from behind, the crossed apron straps and the folds of cloth over the stool show the same care in modelling as the front.
As each piece was painted by hand, small differences in colour and detail make every example of this model slightly different from the next.
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