Arts & Crafts: Austria

5crafts to try and buy in Austria

A country’s crafts reveal its culture, so return home with a cowbell or snowglobe to remind you of Austria’s Alpine meadows

1COWBELLS Austrian farmers tie bells to cattle so they can find them if they wander off. Traditionally, blacksmiths made the bells by pressing sheets of steel together, hammering them into shape and welding them. After adding handles, they dip them in brass, polish them and paint images of flowers or chalets on them by hand.

2SNOW GLOBES Inspired by cobblers’ lamps – water-filled glass balls used to magnify candlelight – Erwin Perzy I invented the snowglobe in Vienna around 1900. They are still made by hand, and often feature mountain village scenes and Vienna’s Ferris wheel, St Stephen’s Cathedral and City Hall under a blanket of fake snow.

3MASKS Fasnacht carnival heralds the arrival of spring (the next one is Jan-Feb 2023). The first written record of the procession was in 1740 and today it’s on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list. Men parade in wooden masks depicting a beard and bushy eyebrows or feminine eyes and rosy cheeks.

4INDIGO PRINTING The ancient art of indigo blue hand printing is also on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage. Wooden blocks form a pattern on white fabric, which is immersed in indigo – a dye derived from the indigofera tinctoria bush. The colour develops once the fabric is exposed to oxygen.

5HANDBLOCK PRINTING Anna Mautner is credited for introducing handblock printing to the town of Bad Aussee in the region of Styria in 1930. The wife of a regional dress collector, Mautner began collecting patterned wooden blocks and learnt how to print on fabric with them.

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WHERE TO BUY…

Cowbells

Walter Scherl is Austria’s last cowbell blacksmith – his workshop in Schnann in Tirol has been in his family for 300 years. Watch him at work and buy a bell to paint yourself. Pettneu am Arlberg, Tirol; schellenschmied.at

Snowglobes

Buy snowglobes at markets across Austria or watch them being made at the Snow Globe Museum, a 250-year-old building in Vienna run by Perzy’s grandson, Erwin Perzy III. Vienna; schneekugel.at

Masks

Browse 450 masks in House of Fasnacht Nassereith in Tirol (reopening June 2022). To buy or make one, contact carvers Matthias Gasperi in Hatting, Holger Tangl in Wenns or Florian Schaller in Gries im Sellrain. Museum, Nassereith; the carvers are on Facebook.

Indigo printing

Joseph and Miriam Koó own Original Indigo Blueprint, established in 1921. They still print with the hand-operated machine their ancestors used in 1930. Watch them work, buy fabric from their workshop and enquire about courses. Steinberg-Dorfl; originalblaudruck.at

Handblock printing

Buy handblock printed scarves, ties and dirndl – a bodice and apron worn over a blouse – at Mautner, or design your own at Handdrucke Markus Wach. Bad Aussee; mautnerdrucke.at handdrucke.at