Traditional German ivory carvers keep craft alive through mammoth tusk fragments

Dominik working on an ivory carving of Jesus in his father's workshop in Germany. Photos: dpa

It's very delicate manual work. The objects are crafted to fractions of a millimetre, and the tool resembles that of a dental technician – which might not be so strange considering that the material is also a tooth, specifically ivory.

In the small, tranquil German town of Erbach, located in the mountainous Odenwald region south of Frankfurt, Dominik Schott sits at his workbench and restores a small statue of Jesus.

An arm, a part of the foot and tiny parts of the crown of thorns have to be reworked. The 37-year-old journeyman works in the Mammutwerkstatt, or mammoth workshop, an ivory carving workshop run by his father, Juergen Schott, who is a master of his trade and the owner of one of the last ivory carving businesses in Germany.

Erbach – a town of about 13,500 – also called Ivory Town, used to be Germany's centre for the delicate trade. Even today, the tradition hasn't completely died out in the region.

In addition to Schott's workshop, there's an ivory museum with carvings at the Erbach Castle, as well as an ivory carving school in neighbouring Michelstadt.

Tusks from an elephant and a mammoth on display at the ivory museum in Germany's Erbach Castle.

According to Rainer Buecking of the German Ivory Association, the school in Michelstadt is the last in Germany that still trains ivory carvers.

"But the graduates take this as a stepping stone," he says. Many of them will go on to further training, for example in design.

The material has also changed with the times.

Due to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention, importing elephant ivory has been prohibited for about 30 years, and has forced ivory carvers to take a different approach to materials.

Juergen Schott works with mammoth ivory. His material comes from Russia, where, thanks to climate change, the mighty teeth of the elephant's ancestors are uncovered in permafrost soils during thawing periods in the summer.

Schott (left) and his son Dominik at their ivory carving workshop in Erbach, Germany.

"The mammoth is an extinct species, which isn't subject to species protection," Schott explains.

After the protection of elephants and the import ban on ivory took effect at the end of the 1980s, he flew to Russia and ordered a tonne of mammoth tusk fragments. The cost at the time was between 350,000 and 380,000 marks (RM839,000 and RM914,000).

"We only use elephant ivory for restorations and special productions," explains the 60-year-old master carver, who runs his business together with his wife and two sons.

The remaining elephant ivory comes from precisely documented stocks from the time before the Washington Convention. Cheating would be impossible, and not only because the ivory is heavily monitored; mammoth and elephant ivory has a different appearance, say experts.

Mammoth ivory has special colours and, like wood, a special grain. Moreover, the enamel is thicker than that of an elephant.

A hunting brooch made of ivory, carved by Ernst Kehrer, on display in Erbach Castle, which hosts an ivory museum.

"It's not possible to pass off mammoth ivory as from an elephant," says Schott.

Today, Schott's business is the last master workshop in Erbach. His father, who founded the workshop in 1949, had employed 50 people.

"There used to be a shop on every street in Erbach," says Schott.

According to Buecking, there were hundreds of ivory carving workshops all over Germany around 1900. Today, there is just under a dozen.

"Erbach has a great ivory tradition," adds Buecking. The production of carvings had been more or less industrialised there, he explains.

The Ivory Museum at Erbach Castle also reveals a lot about the tradition. In several rooms, around 400 ivory exhibits are displayed in illuminated glass showcases, including Erbach roses and hunting brooches, for which the town became famous.

In the 18th century, the carvings had been something for wealthy collectors, says the museum's scientific director, Edda Behringer.

But over the following century, more everyday objects were made for the wealthy upper middle classes. "It was a matter of prestige."

A carving of horses made by Rudolf Schwinn is one of 400 displayed at the ivory museum in Erbach Castle.

Many of these works are on display in the museum's "treasury": Deer, buffalos, letter openers, fans, hair clips or even a one-piece horse bridge with running animals.

It was Count Franz I of Erbach-Erbach who first introduced ivory processing to the tranquil town. "When he introduced it, the artwork was actually not that much in fashion anymore," Behringer says.

Back then, porcelain was more in demand. However, the highly educated nobleman had probably learned the craft on his travels and brought the art of carving to the Odenwald region as a source of income.

Works by the count – snuffboxes – are also on display in the museum. At the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873, an Erbach rose was awarded a prize. "But it has vanished," Behringer says.

The international trade ban on ivory heralded the end of the classic craftsmanship in Erbach. Since then, work has been carried out with substitute materials. But by going back to mammoth ivory, the craftsmen are in fact drawing on a much, much older human tradition.

As Behringer explains: "The history of human art begins with mammoth works from 30,000 to 40,000 years ago." – dpa