Die aufrecht stehende Puppe vor weißem Hintergrund hat einen geschnitzten ovalen Holzkopf mit aufgemalten kurzen braunen Haaren, dunklen Augen und einem Vollbart aus rotbrauner Wolle. Das Gesicht hat einen ernsten Ausdruck. Die Hände sind aus hautfarbenem Filz genäht. Die Puppe trägt ein schwarzes Halstuch und einen langen, weißen Malerkittel.
This small hand puppet shows Paul Klee in a white painter’s smock and was carved by Marianne Ahlfeld-Heymann as a memento of her time at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Klee had made a strong impression on the young woman as a teacher and as a person. As a friend of his son Felix, she was a frequent visitor to Klee’s home, where she had also seen the hand puppets that Paul Klee had made for Felix. After training in the wood sculpture workshop, Marianne Ahlfeld-Heymann worked as a puppet and mask carver, wood sculptor and stage designer. The little hand puppet of Paul Klee also went with her in 1933, when she fled to France, where the Jewish artist lived in hiding for a long time before moving to Israel with her family in 1949.