Producer unknown to us
Knife sheath
Americas, United States
1850–1905
Suede, beadwork, tinplate
Georg Coch (photographer) acquired them before 1905; we do not yet know the exact circumstances of their collection
Handed over to Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden from Natur- und Heimatkundemuseum Seifhennersdorf in 1959
56625
This leather knife sheath was embroidered with red, blue, white, and yellow glass beads. Attached to the sheath are several ornamental leather ribbons embroidered with beads, the ends of which are cones made of bent tinplate chewing tobacco can lids.
The object was the property of Georg Coch (1847-1905), a famous photographer from Upper Lusatia, and were purchased from his estate by the Museum of Natural and Local History Seifhennersdorf in 1907. From there, it came to Dresden in 1967 as part of the GDR’s museum profiling campaign.
The museum in Seifhennersdorf approached the Central Office for Local History Museums of the GDR and asked to hand over its ethnographic objects, since “we have no possibility whatsoever to use the aforementioned items in our local museum.” Ethnographic objects did not fit into the museum’s collection profile, which meant that they could not be used for exhibitions and strained the capacity of the museum’s storage facilities.
Frank Usbeck