Producer unknown to us
Ornamental plate
Americas, Mexico
20th century
Metal, painted
Gift to Erich Honecker (1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED) by Arnoldo Martinez Verdugo (chairman of the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM)) on May 28, 1984
Presented to the Dresden Museum by the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1984
74190
This metal plate was a gift to SED General Secretary Erich Honecker from the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM) on the occasion of a conversation in 1984. The conversation and presentation of the gift took place during a visit by a PSUM delegation to the GDR. An SED delegation had accepted the PSUM’s invitation to its Second Party Congress in Mexico City the previous year and presented a tapestry with the portrait of Karl Marx woven into it. While the SED’s gift in 1983 showed a clear alignment with dogmatic Marxism-Leninism—a fundamental political common ground—the Mexican party opted for the metal plate as an object of national and cultural representation and to subtly distance itself from the SED’s policy.
In the center of the plate is a colorful depiction of the Aztec Sun Stone. The edge of the plate is decorated with the word “México” in capital letters, which is also highlighted in the Mexican national colors of green, white, and red. The Aztec Sun Stone was part of the ancient Great Temple of Tenochtitlán, the urban center of the Aztec Empire (1428–1521) and served as a sacrificial offering plate. It is a prominent symbol of the Aztec Empire, which was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors, and a symbol of Mexican national identity.
Lisa Thiel