Designer: Kay Bojesen (1886 – 1958)

Item: Articulated Toy Elephant

Manufactured by: Kay Bojesen

Country of origin: Denmark

Year made: Designed in 1953, this example likely late 1950s

Materials Oak wood stained

Dimensions: 5” x 6” (with trunk down) x 3 ½”

Condition: Excellent with nice dark patina from age

Description: Kay Bojesen was a silversmith and designer who began designing and making wooden toys in about 1922 that included a wooden toy ship and drum.  In 1922 he entered four toy designs into a competition sponsored by the Dansk Arbejede Association and won an award.  

His first introduced wooden animal toys came in about 1930, and this elephant was a later-in-life design done in 1953.  His wooden toy monkeys designed in 1951, other animal, and toy soldiers have become iconic mid-century modern designs and have been greatly copied. 

The Kay Bojesen firm is still in business and run by his granddaughter.  Their website states that Kay Bojesen’s “idea was not to create lifelike copies of real animals or to be too sophisticated or focus too much on detail, but instead to create imaginative toys in designs based on a child's own world where ‘lines need to smile’. The wooden toys had to be simple, solid and inspire children to play.  With this basic philosophy in mind, Kay Bojesen created his beloved wooden toys that appeal to the child within us all.”

This example has the correct impressed mark on the rear foot that reads “Kay Bojesen Denmark Copyright”.