Polychrome wood, 19th century
Presumed to have been salvaged from the old Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche) on Brüderstraße
Photo: Bernd Kirtz
To the left in front of the altar of the lower church stands the sculpture of Saint Joseph with the Child. It complements the depictions of Mary in the lower church of Liebfrauen: the sculpture of Mary with the Child to the right in front of the altar, an oil painting of Mary with the Child, as well as a medieval Pietà, Mary with the dead Jesus.
Here, Joseph is highlighted as a distinct figure, depicted not merely as part of the Holy Family standing in the background behind the ox and the donkey, but rather as a loving father holding the child in his arms. The depiction is conventional. You can buy similar things to this day: a middle-aged bearded man in a flowing blue and gold robe, carrying a grown-looking child on a billowing cloth, the whole thing looking Neo-Baroque.
He could not be missing from a Duisburg church dating back to the late 1950s—a minor figure in the Bible, yet God's man on Earth, protector of construction workers, and helper of the dying, who is also the patron saint of today's parish church of the Liebfrauen congregation at Dellplatz.
And a saint who also had to stand for political positions: 'Pope Pius IX named Joseph patron of the entire Catholic Church in 1870, Pope Pius XI named him patron of all those fighting communism in 1937, and Pope Pius XII introduced the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955 as a day of remembrance intended to connect Joseph with Labor Day on May 1st.' (heiligenlexikon.de)
References:
Schäfer, Joachim: Joseph von Nazaret,
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienJ/Joseph_von_Nazareth.htm (August 5th, 2019, retrieved October 10th, 2019).
Schmitt, Christoph: Josef von Nazaret, in: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, volume XXVIII (2007), columns 877-878, retrieved from:
https://www.bbkl.de/public/index.php/frontend/lexicon/J/Jo/josef-von-nazareth-59585 (October 4th, 2019).
