The carver's expertise is evident in the realistically rendered fur of this bear carved from Swiss pine wood. In order to safely guide the blade, the carver's thumb rested on the wood, while the handmade sweeping movements, which allowed the surface to be modelled quickly. Wood carvers from Val Gardena were considered to be extremely swift in their technique. 

Animal motifs like this reclining cow made from unvarnished arolla pine wood were carved mainly in Val di Funes during the 19th century and up to the First World War. A range of animals were depicted: exotic beasts from Noah's Ark, yet there were also examples of local animals, mostly characteristic of Alpine romanticism. 

A woman with a basket on her back, a man with a sack slung over his shoulder: carved figurines of vagabonds and beggars were a speciality for Val Gardena artists from the last third of the 18th century. They usually come in pairs and are depicted in a very realistic manner: haggard, often crippled, with ragged clothes, walking stick and hat. Missing or worn-out shoes are another feature of Val Gardena figurines.  

Flagellation, a crown of thorns, hammer, nails, pliers, lances, vinegar-soaked sponge and ladder, dice and Jesus' garments: nothing connected with Christ's crucifixion was left out of this baroque crucifixion group from Val Gardena. The reason is simple: the Instruments of the Passion were considered powerful weapons in the fight against evil. The house that this devotional item originates from is not known.  

This small carved and painted sculpture shows a couple beneath a tree with a goat nibbling at the woman's bouquet. The sculpture - probably from the 1840s - reflects fashions from the end of the Biedermeier period, while it also demonstrates Gröden wood carvers' adopting of motifs from all sales regions and the manufacture of ceramic items.

This artistic candle holder in empire style carved from a single piece of wood with criss-crossing garlands and acanthus leaves is painted in vivid yellow, red and green. The base on three legs rises up like a pyramid and lends the candle holder a stable, yet elegant look. Carved frames and partially turned candle holders were an important area of production for the Val Gardena art industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

This delicately figure of an impishly grinning Krampus carved from pear wood carries a basket to keep cigarettes in. It was made by the sculptor Franz Insam de Cësanueva from Santa Cristina, who created a series of items popular throughout the whole Habsburg empire in the 1870s - not only items such as this one for tobacco consumers, but nutcrackers, too. 

It was customary to put pocket watches, considered valuable objects, on display in living rooms enclosed in ornately carved, partially gilded watch stands. Watch stands were a item commonly produced in Val Gardena from the mid-18th century until the 1870s, often featuring an allegorical depiction of time as an elderly man with a beard and wings. He usually held a sickle or scythe, later also a sand glass. 

This small sculpture with a flat back is an example of the anonymous domestic art popular in the 17th and 18th centuries all over the valley. It shows Adam and Eve under the apple tree. Eva is offering the apple to Adam and neither has yet eaten it. The snake as symbol of temptation is missing. The little sculpture was probably a private devotional work. 

This small arolla pine sculpture of the holy family on their flight to Egypt dates back to the 17th century. It is one of the oldest works in Museum Gherdëina and an early example of wood carving in Val Gardena. Carved depictions of the nativity story were developed in the Middle Ages, and, as of the 18th century, lots of families in Val Gardena specialised in carving crib figurines.