By Rafe Calder
GrÀfenroda has about three thousand people. It also has a claim to one of the most recognisable garden objects in the world.
The town
Wikipedia describes GrÀfenroda as a village in the Ilm-Kreis district of Thuringia, at 400 metres elevation in the Wilde Gera valley, northeast of the Thuringian Forest. It gives the population as 3,180 at the end of 2018 and says the village has been part of the municipality of Geratal since 1 January 2019. It says two local companies began industrial production of garden gnomes in the 1870s, that the figures appeared at the 1898 Leipzig Trade Fair, and that a museum now covers their history.
Whose gnome, and when?
Dates in order is the only honest way to do this, because the sources do not agree.
- Wikipedia, article on garden gnomes: GrÀfenroda was closely associated with gnome production from around 1860. The Dresden firm Baehr and Maresch had small ceramic dwarves in stock by 1841, and some credit them with the first garden gnomes, though the article calls this disputed.
- Wikipedia, article on GrÀfenroda: industrial production in the 1870s; the 1898 Leipzig fair.
- The Thuringia tourist board, a regional body: Philipp Griebel founded a terracotta factory in GrÀfenroda in 1874, and a GrÀfenroda terracotta company showed clay gnomes modelled on Thuringian Forest miners at the 1884 Leipzig Trade Fair.
- A second page of the same board, for the workshop: Griebel finished an apprenticeship as a porcelain worker in 1860, trained as an animal-head modeller under Heinrich Dornheim, and founded his own firm in 1874. In 1876 it showed animal figures in Leipzig. Between 1880 and 1890 he helped develop the GrÀfenroda gnome alongside other modellers. The page disputes claims that the gnome began here in the 1870s, saying manufacturers including Griebel added gnomes to their ranges about twenty years later.
- An online shop’s page on the workshop (our summariser called it a directory listing): the Griebel family began making terracotta in 1874, gnome production began in 1880, and the firm showed at an 1884 Leipzig exhibition.
We do not resolve it. Our reading: “the first gnome” is likely a different question from “the first gnome factory”, and the Thuringian pages seem to separate animal figures from gnomes. That is our inference.
Older than the gnome
The tourist board’s page on the gnome says garden figures go back to the Baroque era, when statues of small people decorated noble gardens. It says Heinrich Dornheim was making animal figures in GrĂ€fenroda from the middle of the nineteenth century, and that terracotta production boomed at the end of that century, with workshops making gnomes in Germany and abroad. Wikipedia adds that within about ten years dwarf statues had spread from Saxony and Thuringia across Germany and into France, and reached other European countries in the 1840s. Those spread dates sit uneasily beside a 1874 founding, and we do not reconcile them.
The town in dates
Wikipedia’s article gives GrĂ€fenroda’s first mention in a deed as 1290, a railway station on the Neudietendorf to Ritschenhausen line in 1884, and a line to Gotha in 1892. The station and the Leipzig fair of 1884 share a year. Our reading: a pottery town with a railway had an easy road to a trade fair, but no source draws that link.
How a gnome is made
English Wikipedia describes terracotta gnomes this way. Clay slip is poured into moulds, the centre is emptied to leave a shell, the figure is dried, fired in a kiln and painted. The Thuringia tourist board says the workshop figures are shaped from clay, fired and painted by hand, that the face alone takes ten painting passes, and that the workshop still uses plaster models about 150 years old. Wikipedia notes that modern gnomes are often resin and similar materials.
The English gnomes
Wikipedia says Sir Charles Isham brought twenty-one terracotta gnomes made in Germany by Philip Griebel to Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, and dates this to 1847. The only survivor, it says, is nicknamed Lampy. Set that beside the Thuringian pages, which date Griebel’s own firm to 1874. The dates are 27 years apart. We note it and do not fix it.
The last workshop?
The Thuringia tourist board calls the Zwergstatt the only remaining traditional gnome manufactory in the world. The board’s page on the workshop quotes the company describing itself as the only remaining pure garden gnome manufactory. A second regional tourism page says GrĂ€fenroda garden gnomes have been on the Thuringia State Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2022. These are claims by the workshop and its regional promoters, and we have not checked them with an independent body.
What the museum shows
The board’s page for the workshop says the museum covers the history of GrĂ€fenroda’s figures from animals and animal heads to fairy-tale characters and the garden gnome, and that visitors can see forming, casting and firing. Check the current page for tours and opening times, which we do not give.
Side by side
Six sources, at least seven dates, from 1841 to 1898. The two regional pages agree that Griebel started in 1874, and disagree with Wikipedia’s “around 1860”. Our reading: the older the claim, the more it depends on how you define a gnome.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia, open to edits; a regional tourist board, which promotes the workshop; and an online shop’s page, which we flag as the weakest source here. We read no archive and no museum catalogue.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is the figure terracotta or resin? Was it painted by hand, and how many coats? Is the mould old or new? Which town was it made in? The sources describe the process only in general terms, so we name no maker and make no claim about any particular gnome.
What we left out
We left out the Chelsea Flower Show history, travelling-gnome pranks, collectors named in the sources, and every price. We named no living person.
Quick answers
Where did the garden gnome begin? Wikipedia ties it to GrĂ€fenroda, Thuringia, but also notes a Dresden firm with ceramic dwarves by 1841. The Thuringia tourist board says Griebel’s firm began in 1874.
How is a terracotta gnome made? According to Wikipedia, clay slip is poured into moulds, the shell is dried, fired and painted.
Is it protected heritage? A regional Thuringian tourism page says GrÀfenroda garden gnomes have been on the Thuringia State Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2022.
Related on this site: trier-roman-monuments-moselle, printed-advent-calendar-munich-origins, black-forest-ham-protected-name
Roam first. Shop later.