Producer unknown to us
Devotional picture
Americas, Mexico
Prior to 1901
Wood, bone
Joseph Anton Dorenberg (German tradesman and diplomat)
Donation to the museum by Dorenberg in 1901
MAm 00248
The collector of this devotional picture, Josef Anton Dorenberg (1846–1935), was a German businessman and diplomat. He served as a volunteer soldier in Mexico (1865–67), then settled there and became a successful entrepreneur. From 1887–1912 he served as the consul for Belgium in Mexico. He amassed collections of over 4,500 ethnographic and archaeological objects from Mexico over a period of 40 years, some of which he took out of the country in diplomatic baggage despite the export ban. In Leipzig, where he was long listed as a "patron of the museum," he amassed a collection of 221 objects; of these, about 60 pieces are still extant after the December 1943 bombing raid.
Frank Usbeck