The carving of Dala horses is thought to have started in the village of Bergkarlas, though the nearby "horse" villages of Risa, Vattnas and Nusnas were also centers of horse making. The villages were involved in the art of furniture and clock-making, and it is likely the leftover scraps of wood were at first whittled into toy horses for children as a winter pastime.

But the art of carving and painting the small horses quickly flourished in the 1800's, as economic hardship in the region inspired greater production of the little horses, and they became an important item of barter. Horse-making may have started as something to while away the hours during the long winter months but soon the Dala horses were traded in exhange for household goods and their carving and painting blossomed into a full-fledged cottage industry. The rural families depended on horse production to help keep food on the table, as the skills of horse carving and painting were passed from one generation to the next.

The decoration on the Dala horse (the first horses were not painted or were only one color) has its roots in furniture painting and was perfected over the years. Perhaps the most famous decorator was Mora artist Stika Erik Hansson from Risa, the first of the horse painters to paint with two colors on the brush at one time.

There were the horse whittlers and there were the horse painters - and it was considered a great honor for a whittler to have his horse painted by a reknowned painter such as Stika Erik! (Interestingly, in the book "The Wooden Horses of Sweden," the author discovered that this famous Dala painter is buried in a small churchyard in Nebraska after having immigrated to the Midwest in 1887 at the age of 64.) Stika Erik's method of using 2 colors at one time with a very fine brush is still used today.

Of course, individual artists each had their particular style of painting, and the few who are old enough to remember first- or second-hand the history can often tell which parish, and in some cases which carver or painter, turned out a particular horse!

The horses have distinctive shapes. Look closely - some horses like the Nusnas horse are stocky work horses; others are lean and upright with stately countenance like the Rattvik horse. Many of the works by the earliest horse makers are no longer in existence but those that remain are cherished and their unique designs are reproduced.

Today, Nusnas is the center of Dala horse production with the most famous being the Nils Olsson and Grannas Olsson workshops. The old-style horses we offer are hand-carved and painted to replicate the style of the antique horses found in Swedish museums or held in private family collections.
We also offer some with more unique shapes, such as the sitting or running horse!
Today's Dala horse production (though modernized somewhat with comfortable work space, dust fans and modern painting brushes) is still basically a cottage industry - the horses are whittled in homes and on farms in and around Nusnas (and other areas as well) and delivered to the workshops for painting. The old carvers who can still whittle horses are becoming smaller and smaller in number and production does not keep pace with demand.

I encourage you to read the wonderful book, "Wooden Horses of Sweden" by Anne Marie Radstrom, to learn more about the history of the fascinating, magic horse of Sweden! Also recommended, if you can find it, is the aptly-named book, "The Magic Horse" by Chris Mosey, which is currently out of print.

See Dala Horses