Ystad skulpturpark

Norra promenaden acts as Ystad’s town park and was originally designed in the German 1800s garden style with gravel paths, trees, bushes and decorative flowerbeds. Along one edge of the park towards the town centre there is still a small part of the moat that was once outside the town ramparts. In the centre of the park is a restaurant pavilion in well-preserved Art Nouveau style and in front of this is a circular flowerbed with a round fountain. In the fountain is The Cobbler’s Boy who holds up a tatty boot from which water is running. The sculpture is cast in bronze. In previous lists of the town’s works of art, the sculpture has been regarded as a little “kitsch” and has therefore not always been included. One of the powerful men of the early 1900s, wholesaler, politician and Danish vice-consul Hugo Schultz, donated The Cobbler’s Boy in 1918 for the town’s ornamentation. The setting, with its “fin de siècle” atmosphere has always been a popular meeting place for Ystad residents.

The sculptor is unknown. At a guess, it may be a German copy of an Italian original. The Cobbler’s Boy has been vandalised a number of times. The current version was cast as recently as 1999.