Sebnitz

Sebnitz, a small town in the Saxonian Erzgebirge, was a center of manufacturing of artifical flowers since long ago. Starting from this point, the step towards the production of Christmas ornaments was not that great then. Sebnitz items feature an own, unmistakable characteristic, and, indeed, they have a flowery touch. Typically, they are composed of a huge, seemingly incongruent bunch of materials: punched silver foil, glass tubes, beads, cotton, paper, fabric, chenille, cardboard, tin foil, mica, wire, scraps, even grass, wood, and fir cones. Nearly all conceivable materials were taken to be transformed into unheard-of pieces of Christmas folk art.

Especially Sebnitz's homeworkers had fallen in love with all kinds of repositories. They made them to put a small wax child in, for instance small beds, cribs, sleds, baby carriages, altars, cradles, baskets, palanquins, or little boats. Because all that has been produced in a private family scope, each piece is more or less unique and incomparable, what may explain that I know of few ornament types that are sought after more today.