One hundred identically-scultped yet differently painted statues of Hans Hummel are spread out throughout Hamburg as a 2003 art project.
Most were eventually sold, but a few, like this one are still on public display. This one is number 4. And the small plaque accompanying the work indicates:
"HANS HUMMEL FUR HAMBURG NR.4
Patenshaft durch: BLEICHENHOF
Gestaltung: Rudolf-Steiner-Schule, Hamburg-Farmsen
EINE AKTION DES CITY MANAGEMENT HAMBURG"
This piece depicts an approximately life-sized Hummel carrying two mostly green buckets over his back. He wears a top hat, shoes, a jacket and pants. Most of his face and attire have a black and white checkered pattern with bits of a road map imposed over some of the white patches on his left side. A website which apparently no longer exists, but did exist when posting a few other versions of this sculpture in 2012 (See (
visit link) added:
"Hans Hummel was the last water-carrier in Hamburg at a time when only a few houses still did not have their own water-supplies back in the middle of the 19th century. Hans Hummel used to walk through Hamburg with his 2 heavy vats of water and the nasty children used to shout after him : Hummel Hummel....
...his answer was mostly just : Mors, Mors (@rse, @rse...)
HH is printed at all of the licence-plates of cars in Hamburg NOT for Hummel Hummel, BUT of course for "Hansestadt Hamburg"
For more than 150 years the water-carrier Hans Hummel became a symbol for hamburg and a few years ago some clever tourism-managers had the funny idea of creating 100 such "Hummels", designed by different artists. Not a bad idea and maybe a lot better than the cows, lions, bears etc. that other cities had.
All of them have the same sculpture, EXCEPT one that has a different hat - see my picture !"
Wikipedia's article on Hummel has a section about the sculptures as well...but in German: (
visit link)