I'm visiting Budapest for a few weeks, and I keep seeing old buildings with sculpted reliefs of children/babies working. They're sometimes chiseling at furniture, or making clay pots, or even playing with a gear.
This is definitely older (19th century, or possibly early 20th century), but definitely not socialist realism or anything communist inspired, in case you were going to go that way.
I've seen it at least three times. Here's an ugly link to a google street view of one site: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kiraly+utca+11+Budapest&ie=UTF8&ll=47.498966,19.057869&spn=0.007248,0.021136&hnear=1075+Budapest,+VII.+ker%C3%BClet,+Kir%C3%A1ly+utca+11,+Hungary&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=47.498966,19.057869&panoid=01qnD9HzT_bGxmqp2jn_MQ&cbp=12,158,,0,-2.92
I've done some quick google searches, but I couldn't find any info. I was hoping you could explain if this was common, and when, and most importantly why?
Very interesting question. Since I am not an art histrorian it took me a while to find something meaningful on google. But I found it! So here it is: The building on your link was indeed built in the early 19th century, in 1812. A silversmith named József Prandter ordered the building according to the plans and architecture of Mihaly Pollack, a famous Hungarian architect. He worked on this building with a guy named Lőrinc Dunajszky, who was an architect sculptor. He made those ‘biedermeirer‘ sculpted reliefs of children working that you were asking about. As my source writes, it was sculpted to glorify the craftmanship of Jozsef Prandter, the owner of the building. The current displayed sculptures are copies, the original ones are displayed in Kiscelli Múzeum.
My source was an essay about Király st.: link