An Albin Amende Sonneberg German navy sailor from the SMS Eber and black man wresting toy, circa 1888, papier-mâché painted figures with jointed wooden limbs the arms attached and printed paper laid on wood and string to suspend —8 ¾in. (22cm.) high (slight cracking and two fronts of foot missing) —SMS Eber was a steam gunboat built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s, in October 1888, she sailed to Nauru, where her crew formally proclaimed the German annexation of the island and disarmed its inhabitants, ending the Nauruan Civil War.