This wonderful figure can be found in the equally wonderful Cheltenham Museum, where it is wall mounted as it originally was outside the Chimney Sweep's own house. You climb the Museum stairs to the first floor and see its chilling presence up ahead of you. The surface modelling feels like Barlach and then you realise it is dated c1850. The commercially available postcard loses much of the malevolence by stripping the figure out against a red background, with heightened white eyes. Only then do you realise the gaunt character of the original, with raised eyebrows and slight smile. At certain angles the nearby brushes give the figure an unintended devlish tail.

The small platform used in the Museum has a sort of softening of the effect, as if chamfering will make the spectacle less harsh. In the original mounting there is a clear stark shelf on which the figure teeters, only to rock forward, a sort of Simon Stylites with attitude. The whimsical twist of wrought iron give the base a tension, like some spring board that is missing in the Museum.

Still, what a thing!