Ambla shelters Starkopf sculpture from the weather

Ambla Maarja congregation has installed a canopy over the marble sculpture Boy with Poppies in Ambla village to protect it from weather damage, ERR reported.

The sculpture by Anton Starkopf was restored four years ago. It depicts a five-year-old boy and was placed in Ambla cemetery 103 years ago on the grave of a former municipal secretary’s young son.

Starkopf’s connection to Ambla began when he made the village’s War of Independence monument. He was later commissioned to create Boy with Poppies, said Tõnu Linnasmäe, pastor of the Ambla Maarja congregation. Legends say the child ate poppy seeds and fell asleep forever, but Linnasmäe said it was more likely that he had been ill.

Restorer Isabel Aaso-Zahradnikova advised the congregation to inspect the grave marker carefully every couple of years. Linnasmäe said she had recommended sheltering it, possibly in a chapel, but that would prevent people from seeing it. The new canopy is intended to protect the sculpture without obscuring it.

Madis Mikkor, a Järva County adviser at the Heritage Board, said valuable marble sculptures in St Petersburg had been protected from winter with rough wooden boxes. Marble grave markers are relatively rare in Estonia, however, and the practice has not taken hold there.

It is not yet known whether the canopy will effectively protect the sculpture from windblown rain and airborne fungal spores. The Heritage Board is prepared to assess its performance later.