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Arches
Handcraft art work from German "Toyland"
Erzgebirge & Thuringia.
The first predecessor of Candle Arches (Schwibbogen) was manufactured
1726 from wrought iron.
The German name Schwibbogen refers to a type of arch constructed
in gothic times when an arch
between two walls was called "Schwebebogen" (floating arch).
The look goes back to a tradition of silver miners,
who hung their burning pit lamps semi-circularly on the pit
entry hole before they started their
last shift before Christmas.
The Candle Arch expresses the longing of light by the miners
who did not see very much daylight during
their workdays. The arches were placed on the windows of each
house to show the men the way home
at night after working in the mines. In the old days, there
were no street lanterns.
Sometimes big candles of oil would burn for a few hours - but
not the whole night.
The Erzgebirge is a mountainous region between Chemnitz, Dresden,
and the Checz border
in the Free State of Saxony. In pre-medieval times, large forests
covered the area so densely that in the
Merseburg bishop's chronicles, it was referred to as Miriquidi,
Latin for "dark forest."
The sparsely inhabited wilderness of the aptly named Erzgebirge,
which translates to "Ore Mountain,"
became populated primarily through its rich mines.
In the Erzgebirge of Germany one can see the Candle Arches
during the Christmas time in many windows
and in over-size versions in public places.
The Arch has become beloved by peoples from all over the world
during the last century.
The items we offer are authentic! We import them directly from
the craftsmen of Erzgebirge. |
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